At last, Hulu has unveiled the first extended look at the upcoming spinoff comedy How I Met Your Father, with a full-length trailer that is full of cityscapes, cringe-addled first dates, people looking at their phones, and Hilary Duff in her latest TV lead role. Sounds like a winning enough combination, and this first trailer immediately sets itself apart from its How I Met Your Mother predecessor in an interesting way.
Anyone watching the trailer above will notice that it kicks off with Kim Cattrall as an older version of Sophie, the romance-seeking character played in her younger days by the aforementioned Hilary Duff. Fans already knew that Cattrall would serve as Future Sophie via voiceover narration, but the trailer seems to confirm that the Sex and the City alum will actually appear on the show in person, which was not so much the case for How I Met Your Mother.
In the O.G. series, Full House vet Bob Saget lent his (uncredited) voice for narration duties as Ted Mosby, as portrayed by Josh Radnor throughout the show's nine seasons. In all that time, though, the series never put viewers up close and personal with Saget's version of Ted in 2030. So having Cattrall recur as the older and presumably wiser Sophie (in an unspecified "near future") is automatically a good start for making a distinction between the two projects.
The familiar hook here will see Kim Cattrall's Sophie telling her son (i.e. the audience) the complicated story about how she met the kid's father, with the new series kicking off in the year 2021. Duff's Sophie has a friend set that includes Veronica Mars vet Chris Lowell as Jesse, The Secret Life of the American Teenager's Francia Raisa as Valentina, The Royals' Tom Ainsley as Charlie, Candyman's Tien Tran as Ellen and God Friended Me's Suraj Sharma as Sid.
Fans can expect to see this squad trying to figure out what they want from life, while also navigating an ever-changing world of love and dating apps. (And uses of tissue.) As the trailer made it clear, those same fans can also expect to see recurring appearances from Josh Peck, whose Disney+ comedy Turner and Hooch was recently cancelled, and American Gods vet Ashley Reyes.
The trailer also features Sophie and date Ian, as played by David Makes Man vet Daniel Augustin. That character was originally meant to be portrayed by Sharma's God Friended Me co-star Brandon Michael Hall, who had to drop out of the new series due to scheduling conflicts.
How I Met Your Father is set to make its streaming premiere on Hulu on Tuesday, January 18. Be sure to tune in to see how else it differs from How I Met Your Mother, and be sure to check out everything else hitting the small screen soon with our 2022 TV premiere schedule.
