Carter Bays makes romantic comedy out of the way people tell their stories, using delayed answers and recurring jokes. We enjoy his ingenuity, but his writing is less appealing when it waits for us to admire it.
Fi1m perspective
Ted Mosby's search for love gives How I Met Your Mother (2005) its story, but the telling supplies much of the comedy. Working with Craig Thomas, Carter Bays makes a familiar romantic setup worth returning to by complicating how it is recounted. We laughed at the anticipation itself, because the writers make waiting for an answer part of the joke. A sitcom that can do that has earned some patience. This is good romantic comedy, though the jokes do not always justify the complications.
Bays and Thomas wrote for Late Show with David Letterman from 1997 to 2002 before moving through sitcom writing to their own series. How I Met Your Mother gave them nine seasons to develop character stories, using flashbacks, flash-forwards and recurring callbacks. A romantic mishap can seem different when the person telling it supplies more information. At its strongest, the programme lets us reconsider what a familiar situation might mean to the person recounting it.
The cast helps with the less rewarding stretches, and Neil Patrick Harris is our strongest reason to keep watching. Bays and Thomas sometimes seem to think that an ingenious premise will excuse an ordinary joke, and the strain shows when the writing draws attention to its own cleverness. We would happily trade some of the elaborate construction for a straightforward conversation. Yet the writing deserves credit for making the telling itself part of a romantic sitcom's humour. It gives us something to enjoy beyond wondering who Ted will meet next.
The Goodwin Games (2013) was another sitcom co-created by Bays and Thomas; a clearer change of form came with Bays's first novel, The Mutual Friend (2022). Its intersecting storylines carry his interest in coordinating several stories into prose. That move makes sense for a writer so concerned with when information arrives. What we would like to see more of, in any format, is the willingness to let a simple exchange stand without additional cleverness. Start with How I Met Your Mother for the cast, and allow a little patience for its authors.
Biography
Carter Bays is an American television writer, producer, showrunner and musician. Born on 12 August 1975 in Shaker Heights, Ohio, he studied English at Wesleyan University, where he met his future writing partner Craig Thomas.
After graduating in 1997, Bays and Thomas wrote for the Late Show with David Letterman. They went on to co-create the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother (2005–2014), on which Bays served as writer, executive producer and co-showrunner for all nine seasons. He has also written for American Dad! and co-created The Goodwin Games (2013). In 2022 he published the novel The Mutual Friend.
