How I Met Your Father Season 3: Cancelation, Story & Everything We Know

After two seasons of the spinoff sitcom, the How I Met Your Father season 3 news confirms the show’s end. Premiering in 2022, How I Met Your Father recreated the success of the wildly popular How I Met Your Mother and follows Sophie (Hilary Duff) and her group of 30-something friends who pursue their careers and love lives in Manhattan. Like the show that spawned it, How I Met Your Father follows the same framing device involving a future version of Sophie recounting how she met the father of her kids.

While HIMYF had its fans, it was far from a critical success and some felt it failed to live up to the original series. However, the cast and characters of How I Met Your Father were all likable and relatable in their own ways, showing potential for the show to continue in HIMYF season 3 and beyond. Sadly, the How I Met Your Mother spinoff has been canceled, though some fans are holding onto hope for some How I Met Your Father news to offer some sort of closure for the characters in the future.

How I Met Your Father Ended With Season 2

The Last Episode Aired In 2023

The How I Met Your Father season 3 news is not what viewers were hoping for, and will certainly disappoint many of them. It was announced that How I Met Your Father season 3 has been canceled by Hulu after two seasons. The HIMYF cancelation came just months after the season 2 finale. While there have been a number of examples of shows being canceled only to be brought back on another network, no such movement has been discussed as a possibility.

The news comes as a blow to fans of the show who were thrilled to see the How I Met Your Mother spinoff finding its own voice in the second season. This also follows the second failed attempt to spin off the original sitcom into a franchise, with the How I Met Your Dad starring Greta Gerwig never making it past its pilot. Sadly, this likely means the end of any new shows that branch off from How I Met Your Mother.

HIMYF didn’t end with a lot of closure for fans, only teases at the story still to come. The final season explored the dynamic between leads Sophie (Hilary Duff) and Jesse (Chris Lowell), who did both admit that they still had feelings for one another. Jesse, however, wasn’t confirmed as the father of Sophie’s son since the plan was for the show to continue.

Likewise, the series saw Valentina (Francia Raisa) and Drew (Josh Peck) get physical, but Sophie’s narration teased that Valentina would eventually have her own child with a different member of the friend group. These teases were clearly meant to be explored further the following season. The fallout of different relationships flourishing or ending would also, as is the case with any sitcom, have been crucial if How I Met Your Father continued.

Why How I Met Your Father Was Canceled After Season 2

The Reasons Have Never Been Explained Publicly

Even before the show’s cancelation, the How I Met Your Father season 3 release date would have been a big question. The second season of the series ended amidst the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes which halted many productions in Hollywood. That means the writing for How I Met Your Father wouldn’t have begun until after the WGA strike ended. Fans would have been in store for a long wait regardless.

Just why How I Met Your Father was canceled is a bit of a mystery. Though the show received mixed reviews in its first season, those reviews did improve from the audience, though not critics, in the second season. Some critics argued How I Met Your Father failed to live up to the legacy of the original show. Despite those critics, it did succeed in maintaining a fairly consistent streaming audience, according to Whip Media, which measures audience engagement for more than 19 million users on their app TV Time.

Also according to Whip Media, How I Met Your Father maintained a spot in the top 10 streaming shows nearly every week a new episode of the series was released. It was also the 26th most-watched original streaming program in 2023.

Typically, when a series is canceled on streaming, it’s the result of a lack of an audience. That was not the case as the series continued through its second season. It is, however, entirely possible that the cancelation came because Hulu wanted to move on to new content following the writers’ and actors’ strikes, or because the higher-ups at the streamer decided the audience numbers weren’t justifying the cost. Whether that is the case has not been confirmed by anyone at Hulu though.

Were Any How I Met Your Mother Characters Appearing In HIMYF Season 3?

The Shows Were Connected Through Cameos

If the show had returned, it may have continued the trend of How I Met Your Father‘s cameos from HIMYM. These cameos not only helped to drum up interest in the fledgling sitcom series, but also gave fans a bridge between the spin-off and its inspiration. Barney Stinson’s (Neil Patrick Harris) appearance in season 2, episode 11, “Daddy” gave fans a glimpse of a much-changed man, who could have returned as a full-fledged character.

Besides Barney, season 1 also saw a cameo from Robin (Cobie Smulders), which left the door open for other high-profile characters from How I Met Your Mother to appear in some form or another. Besides the main cast, supporting characters like The Captain (Kyle MacLachlan) found new life in the show.

What The Cast & Crew Said About How I Met Your Father Ending

Not Many Have Made Public Statements

Though the cast hasn’t commented at length about the cancelation of the series, How I Met Your Father (and HIMYM) executive producer Craig Thomas did share his sadness to see the series go on his social media accounts with a sense of finality:

“Thanks to the wonderful cast and crew who worked so hard on #HIMYF, sometimes this is how it goes in this crazy business. I will miss the feeling, even from afar, of a bunch of #HIMYM production all-stars continuing to make stuff together which always made my heart feel full!”

Series star Hilary Duff might not have made any official statements when the series was canceled, but she did respond to those commenting about the cancelation on one of Variety’s Instagram posts. When one commenter called the show “cringe” and wondered why the show was made at all, Duff replied, “you have 63 followers,” likely referencing that perhaps her more than 26 million followers on Instagram would have liked to see the show continue.

She’s likely taking the cancelation in stride, however, since she recognizes that cancelations and rejections from casting directors are a big part of the business. In late 2023 she commented on that very idea during an interview on The Drew Barrymore show. She said:

There’s been so many times when I felt like a loser or I didn’t get the job or I’ve been sitting stagnant. But I had to fill my life with things that were real and that was enough at that moment.

How I Met Your Father’s Reception

The Show Received Mixed Reviews

The series had mixed reviews from critics for both seasons of the show, though fan response was much more positive for the second. The Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score (now called a Popcorn Score) increased significantly for the second season of the show.

The series also consistently performed well at the Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Awards. Both seasons received nominations in technical categories – for Outstanding Cinematography and Outstanding Multi-Camera Picture Editing – winning four Emmys during its run. The increasingly positive reception from fans and the award show circuit is part of why there has been so much confusion from audiences about the cancelation of How I Met Your Father.