How I Met Your Mother - Seasons 1 to 5 DVD Box Set

Release Date: 8th Nov 10
Age: 15+
Format: Region 2 / UK / PAL

RRP: £89.99

Best Price: £62.99

Providing they're funny, TV sitcoms have no real need to be original. Humour is judged on a laughs-per-minute basis, not on innovation or the power of the imagination. Some of the most popular sitcoms of all time have been about little more than some friends living their lives, falling in and out of love and occasionally meeting for coffee.

It's refreshing, then, that How I Met Your Mother at least tries to give itself a post-modern lick of paint. The title says it all - it's a sitcom framed with narration from an old father telling his kids how he met their mum. Flashback thirty years and we're present-day America, where jaded singleton Ted (Josh Radnor) is happy with his unattached lifestyle. The 27 year old Ted is a perpetual bachelor, living with his buddies Marshall (Jason Segel) and Lily (Alyson Hannigan) - but when Marshall and Lily become engaged, Ted faces up to the fact that he needs to start looking for Mrs Right.

Over the course of the five seasons included in this set, we follow Ted as he makes a start on his search, falling into a series of relationships with a number of Mrs Not-Quites. All the while, we're thinking the same thing as Ted himself - is this girl going to be the one? It's a stylish, intelligent hook that gives the show an unusual hold on your attention.

Let's not forget, though, this is a sitcom - and a hilarious one at that. Whilst Ted often plays the straight man, his best friend Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) is a constant source of belly laughs, playing the extreme opposite of the man Ted wants to be. Barney will do anything for female attention - disguises and elaborate heists are just par for the course!

How I Met Your Mother is funny, as per the criteria for a good sitcom. But it's more than that - it's intelligent, stylish, and fiendishly addictive. A highly recommended show presented here in a brilliant five season box set.