The Fourth Season

How I Met Your Mother's fourth season is without a doubt an awesome experience. It will make you laugh and then laugh more. The show has done a remarkable job with its writing, cast, and storylines. This season is just as fun, if not more, than past ones. You will not want to miss a single moment as Ted, Lily, Marshall, Barney, and Robin go through another year of unraveling how series narrator (future Ted) met his bride. Along the way, there are many outrageous and silly moments, which equate to simplistic fun. Of course, Neil Patrick Harris continues to steal the spotlight with his neurotic character Barney.

At the end of season four, Ted was a step closer to finding the woman of his dreams. He had proposed to girlfriend Stella, who said yes. As season four begins, Ted's friends fear he is making a mistake. His time with Stella has been short and he does not really know her that well. In the season premiere episode "Do I Know You?", Ted goes on a neurotic rampage to learn the ins and the outs of Stella's life. One of the crucial tests involves her opinion about his and Marshall's favorite movie, Star Wars. As the season continues, their relationship is a key development: "I Heart NJ", Ted is shocked when Stella tells him they will live in New Jersey, "Shelter Island", Ted and Stella plan to get married in three days, and "Happily Ever After", their wedding day is complicated when their exes get in the way.

Another major development deals with the casts' careers. At the beginning of the season, Marshall is unemployed. Things have gotten so bad that Marshall walks around in his underwear. His friends try their best to cheer him up in "The Best Burger in New York", which guest stars Regis Philbin. They go on a quest to find a burger joint Marshall stumbled upon by accident when they first came to New York. In the end, Marshall announces that he has taken a job with Barney at Goliath National Bank. It is not his dream job, but it is something to pay the bills. Ted also goes through some ups and downs with his career. He loses his job at the architecture firm and tries to start his own business called "Mosbius Designs", which is an utter failure. As the season continues, Ted struggles to come to terms with the end of his career and the start of a new one. Robin also struggles with being a failed news reporter and takes a couple different jobs, which include one in Tokyo and an early morning talk show.

Behind it all, a couple startling details about Barney are revealed. Early into the season, he reveals to Lily that he is in love with Robin. Throughout the season, Barney struggles with his "feelings". It is a hilarious development. Harris carries it well with his character and provides a lot of great laughs. His portrayal of how alien love for another human being is topnotch. Another major Barney-development is exposed in "The Stinsons". Barney acts out of the ordinary (even for him) and disappears from the gang. They get suspicious and follow him. They learn that Barney has a wife and child, which turn out to be a ruse.

In addition to the aforementioned developments, season four has plenty of outright fun episodes. "The Naked Man" is a classic episode. The gang learns about a last resort move on a date, get naked and get laid (or kicked out). Barney, Ted, and Lily put the naked man into action, and get varied results. "Sorry, Bro" is another good episode, where everyone's lives are upset when Karen (Laura Prepon) comes back into Ted's life. She was his first girlfriend and treated him horribly. In the following episode "The Front Porch", Ted learns that Lily has been manipulating fate and it causes everyone to consider "what if". In "Right Place Right Time", Barney goes on a quest to bed his 200th woman, which has disastrous, but hilarious results.

Overall, How I Met Your Mother's fourth season is an intensely fun experience. It stays true to its form with excellent acting performances, topnotch writing, and stories that are engrossing and entertaining. Notably, Neil Patrick Harris continues to be the show's shining star and turns every scene his appears into a riot. In addition, the rest of the cast does well complementing his hilarity with plenty of goofiness. In the end, fans will enjoy every second of this show's amazing fourth season.

Episode Guide

1. Do I Know You?: After Stella accepts Ted's proposal, Ted realizes he knows shockingly little about his bride-to-be. The two spend time getting to know each other better, and Ted tests their true compatibility by having Stella watch his favorite movie, Star Wars, which she has never seen before
2. The Best Burger in New York: When Marshall reminisces about finding the best burger his first night in New York but not being able to find the restaurant since then, the gang sets out on a mission to find the legendary burger.
3. I Heart NJ: Tired of spending most of his time on the train commuting to Stella's in New Jersey, Ted convinces the group to hang out at her place one night, even though they hate New Jersey.
4. Intervention: In packing up the apartment to move out for good, the gang starts to get cold feet. While sorting through old stuff, Ted discovers that at one point Marshall and Lily were going to stage an intervention to tell him not to marry Stella.
5. Shelter Island: When Stella's sister's rustic wedding falls apart, Ted and Stella step in to get married with only a few days' notice. Despite the short notice, Robin catches a flight back from Tokyo.
6. Happily Ever After: After being left at the alter, Ted tries to pretend it didn't happen despite his friends' concerns that he hasn't dealt with his emotions. They take steps to try to get him to open up.
7. Not a Father's Day: Marshall and Lily consider whether or not they're ready to have a baby. After deciding they're ready, Lily panics and turns to Ted and Robin for advice since they have very different points of view on the subject.
8. Woooo!: When the company Barney works for needs an architect to design its new headquarters, Barney gets Ted a shot to throw his hat in the ring and pitch his ideas. But when Barney prefers a flashy Swedish design over Ted's, Barney has to decide whether friendship or business is more important.
9. The Naked Man: When Ted walks in to find Robin's date sitting on the couch naked, he stumbles onto a phenomenon that revolutionizes the gang's concepts on the art of seduction.
10. The Fight: When the bartender at MacLaren's gets into a fight with some patrons sitting in the gang's favorite booth, Ted and Barney decide to back the bartender up and get into their first fight.
11. Little Minnesota: When Ted's younger sister, Heather, comes to visit and decides she wants to move there, Ted worries that she's not mature or responsible enough to survive in NYC.
12. Benefits: Robin and Ted navigate being exes who are now roommates and discover they get along better when they're sleeping together as "friends with benefits".

13. Three Days of Snow: When a snowstorm hits the city before Lily returns from a teacher's conference in Seattle, Marshall and Lily agree to forego they're longstanding airport reunion ritual.
14. The Possimpible: Robin discovers that she only has four days to find work as a television reporter or she will be deported back to Canada. Willing to try anything to avoid deportation, she agrees to let Barney produce a new reel and video resume for her.
15. The Stinsons: After noticing some bizarre and elusive behavior from Barney, the gang starts to suspects that he may have found a girlfriend. When he mysteriously leaves MacLaren's during drinks they decide to follow him.
16. Sorry, Bro: When Lily and Marshall hear that Ted's college girlfriend, Karen, has moved to New York City, it immediately becomes clear that they can't stand her.
17. The Front Porch: When Ted's girlfriend Karen finds one of Robin's earrings in his bed, she accuses him of cheating on her and breaks up with him. Ted soon learns that Lily, who couldn't stand Karen, planted the earring in his bed in order to break up the relationship.
18. Old King Clancy: Marshall and Barney decide to keep Ted in the dark after they discover that Goliath National Bank (GNB) is cancelling plans to build the new headquarters they hired Ted's firm to design
19. Murtaugh: When Barney is banned from Laser Tag, he plans to get revenge by TPing the Laser Tag center and asks Ted to help. Ted insists they are too old for that kind of a prank, prompting him to introduce Barney to his "Murtaugh List," a list of things the gang is too old to do.
20. Mosbius Designs: After losing his job, Ted forms his own architecture firm which he sets up in the apartment he shares with Robin. He gets off to a slow start, wasting all of his time picking stationary and pens for his new business, as opposed to getting on the phone with potential clients.
21. The Three Day's Rule: Ted meets a new girl, Holly, and the gang insists that he wait three days before calling to ask her out. Ted reluctantly agrees, but decides that texting her before then is fine, and he strikes up a text conversation with Holly that lasts several days
22. Right Place Right Time: Ted explains to his future children that being in the right place at the right time can have a massive impact on a person's future, and that the universe tends to have a way of pushing a person toward their destiny.
23. As Fast As She Can: After Ted bumps in to Tony and Stella on the street, Tony shows up at Ted's apartment and insists on taking responsibility for his part in Ted being left at the altar. He explains to Ted that his family is very wealthy and can help him with his career.
24. The Leap: In a last ditch attempt to bring business to his fledgling architecture firm, Ted stays up 24 hours straight working on an pitch. With Ted refusing to leave his work, Marshall tries to lure Ted to the roof for a surprise 31st birthday party.

The DVD

Video:
The video is given in 1.78:1 ratio anamorphic widescreen color. The picture quality is average. It has a relatively clean picture with minor color distortions and noticeable compression artifacts.

Audio:
The audio is given in English 5.1 Dolby digital surround sound. The track is dialogue driven and audible throughout the presentation. There are also subtitles in English, French, Spanish, and Mandarin.

Extras:

• Audio Commentaries: are included for episodes "Do I Know You?" with Carter Bays and Craig Thomas, "The Best Burger in New York" with Carter Bays and Craig Thomas, "I Heart NJ" with David Ellis Dunca and Evan Rock, and "The Naked Man" with Chuck Tatham, Joe Kelly, and Josh Radnor.
• Season 3 Recap (2:44): is a short recap of key scenes from season three.
• Barney Stinson: That Guy's Awesome (1:03): is Barney's video resume from the episode "The Possimpible".
• Gag Reel (7:27): is a montage of goofs caught on tape during filming.
• A Night With Your Mother (15:25): is a panel discussion with cast and crew at the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. They discussion key developments in the show and other aspects related the show. The discussions are complemented with snippets from the show.

Final Thoughts:
How I Met Your Mother's fourth season can be summed up in one word, fantastic. This season continues to build upon its main story arc about how the series narrator (future Ted) met his wife. Along the way, there are plenty of hilarious developments and some assorted drama as the main cast deals with relationships, careers, and other endeavors. In the end, fans will not want to miss out this amazing and engrossing season. It is highly recommended.