Alyson Hannigan

Sitcom requiries little effort but delivers few surprises.

Conceived for the masses who’d rather slip on a comfy tracksuit and eat dinner in front of the telly than head out to wherever the bright young things are hanging these days, How I Met Your Mother is perfect for that moment when loftier impulses to watch The 7.30 Report dissolve in the acid of late-week sloth.

Requiring little effort and delivering few surprises but somehow sucking another half hour pleasantly enough away, it comes from the not entirely disagreeable formula for sitcom success in 2006.

It is spliced from the DNA of Friends and Sex and the City, with the construct of the urban "family" of a group of friends - each with a distinct type-something personality - exploring their new adulthood in a series of would-you-believe adventures.

A story told in flashback, it relates the experiences of Ted (Josh Radnor) before he met his wife and fell in love, as told to his children in voiceover 25 years later. Alyson Hannigan ( Buffy, American Pie) is a standout as newly engaged Lily, and Doogie Howser’s Neil Patrick Harris as Ted’s best friend Barney makes new again the oft-sighted character of the geek who thinks he’s a stud.

It might be unchallenging and predictable but the drug references are made so conservatively you won’t have anything to explain to the kids.