Depends on what you’re looking for. First run, HIMYM was generally stronger, due to the overarching story line and the maintained continuity. BBT didn’t/doesn’t have to maintain that level of continuity, and hasn’t really tried to tell a story beyond a 3-4 episode arc. save maybe Howard’s astronaut one.
But BBT is better in re-runs, as you don’t really have to think back and remember what happened in the previous 2-3 episodes before the one you’re catching halfway through on your local UHF station.
I watched HIMYM for the first time in reruns. I liked it well enough to continue watching through the series in reruns, but after I had watched all the seasons, I moved on. I have no real desire to watch any of the episodes again.
I’ve seen only snippets of BBT. Nothing I’ve seen has encouraged me to seek the show out.
HIMYM (or at least the first 2.5 seasons, which are all that I watched) was full of characters, actions and dialogue that sometimes seemed to be exact copies of me and my late-20s life. Some scenes I swear the writers must have been over to my apartment or my bar the week before to just transcribe what happened.
Big Bang Theory, on the other hand, seems full of caricatures with whom I have a hard time relating. They don’t ever feel like real people.
In HIMYM, Barney is kind of the one guy who doesn’t always act like a real person, but he’s tempered and humanized by the real people around him. In The Big Bang Theory every other character is a Barney.
Of course the question is how many people watch shows on re-runs these days as opposed to streaming seasons?
Oh, add me to Eonwe’s post of HIMYM sometimes seemed like my life at times while BBT appeared to be annoying caricatures come to life - I mean maybe Leonard is somewhat realistic.
Why not do both? I mean, I didn’t catch Breaking Bad during its broadcast run, so I’m streaming it from Netflix. But I still watch re-runs of various shows at times.
But there are times when I don’t really feel like watching TV seriously (i.e. streaming something), and I just want something to watch while I’m doing something else that’s not totally engrossing. Re-runs of comedy TV shows fits that bill perfectly. And the more episodic format of BBT beats the more arc-focused format of HIMYM in that context hands down. Both are actually on during prime-time in my area, and I’ve found that HIMYM just isn’t quite as enjoyable in re-runs since you have to be more or less aware of the last few episodes, while BBT isn’t that dependent on past episodes, in general.
Well because I think less and less people actually watch shows on re-runs. And not, of course, the folks who have cut the cable cord. One reason, IMO, is that folks are into serialized shows more than stand alone type shows and the rise of Netflix and Hulu have created that sort of mentality. I can’t remember the last time I caught a re-run of a show.
I tried HIMYM, but the basic premise and the protagonist were both off putting to me. In fact I hated both. (But the supporting cast was fantastic, so I kept trying).
I thus prefer BBT, but I can’t say I “LOVE” it. I watch it, but I am not waiting for the next episode with bated breath.
I “like” HIMYM and never really warmed up to BBT but I never really bothered to follow HIMYM either. So them stretching the premise to the breaking point or the weak ending was never an issue for me since me liking HIMYM means me perhaps stopping on a syndicated episode and thinking it’s okay.
Both shows are perfectly acceptable sitcoms in their own way.
I’ll watch reruns of BBT but not of HIMYM. As mentioned above most BBT episodes are self-contained. With HIMYM there is too much connected back story to get any satisfaction out of a single episode.
I watched HIMYM on it’s first run and even though the ending was questionable I think it was a great show. I enjoyed the long-arching stories and the references to other plots. A character mentions something and you think “Oh yeah, we never figured out what that was about!” Also, my wife and I are Lily and Marshal.
I liked BBT when it started; I was excited to see a show about geeks. However as it continued on it became less “Geeks are people too” and more “Look at how crazy these geeks are!” I haven’t watched it in a few years.
Update: I’m nearing the end of season seven (of nine) of How I Met Your Mother. I really think it’s tied with being the funniest show I’ve ever seen (tied with The Office, which I’m also currently watching and on season five of).
It/They dethrone That 70s Show, which I previously thought was the funniest show I had ever seen for the last five years before I saw HIMYM.
As for Big Bang Theory, as it is not on Netflix, I have not seen much of it beyond season one.
I love them both. HIMYM was more ambitious and the continuity that they had to deal with was pretty impressive. There were more deep episodes in this show, notably for me the Countdown episode where numbers would appear in random spots like calendars and office doors starting from 50 and then we’re wondering what happens at zero: oh no- Marshall’s dad dies. And there were some genuine funny gags like Marshall with his charts, including the Venn diagram where one circle is “people breaking my heart” and another was “people shaking my confidence daily” and at the intersection was Cecilia. Sure, Barney was over the top. But overall, the characters were more human than caricatures.
I love BBT as well. The characters are often ridiculous but the cast carries it off. Without Jim Parsons, the show doesn’t work at all and gets cancelled after 2 shows. But he makes it work, as does Kaley Cuoco who is the perfect foil for him.
They both have their appeal to me in different ways. Ideally, they’d do a crossover show and I could be the meat in a Robin-Penny sandwich, but that sadly is unlikely to happen.
HIMYM is a classic sitcom that I will rewatch and love for years. Yes it went on too long but even its weakest seasons have inspired episodes.
BBT is a an entertaining show that makes me laugh while I eat dinner or exercise. It’s also showing its age and has probably gone on too long but still has an inspired episode or two.
This. If I happen to catch a rerun of HIMYM, and it’s an ep that I’ve seen before, I’ll watch something else. But I can watch BBT reruns over and over, and never get tired of them.
You can watch a BBT episode completely out of context and still enjoy it. With HIMYM, you have to reorient yourself in terms of who is involved with who and where in the characters evolution the episode is set.
Just as some people prefer short stories to novels, I prefer sitcoms to hour-long dramas. Having admitted my fandom, I say HIMYM is the probably the most elaborately designed and executed sitcom ever. It even managed to be funny despite the fact that that the lead was - at most - the fourth best character in the show. The fact that they managed to hang the entire show on a will they or won’t they premise for nine seasons is remarkable.
TBBT should have run out of gas completely years ago, but the addition of Amy Farrah Fowler (and the acting chops of Mayim Bialik) and Bernadette let the producers take the show in directions they’d probably never even thought of when it started.
The best way to think about them is like Cheers and Frasier. The former stayed fresh by bringing in new characters, while the latter was beautifully crafted and stayed true to its concept.