Each episode of How I Met Your Mother opens with architect Ted Mosby (Josh Radnor) in the year 2030, narrating a story to his teenage son and daughter about some crazy adventure he and his friends got up to that ultimately led to his meeting their mother. Ted’s friends are Marshall Erikson (Jason Segel) and his wife Lily Aldrin (Alyson Hannigan), playboy Barney Stinson (Neil Patrick Harris) and Canadian newswoman Robin Scherbatsky (Cobie Smulders). After six seasons, the mother’s identity is still unknown to the audience, but in that finale it was revealed that Ted meets the mother on Barney’s wedding day.

At the end of the sixth season, Marshall and Lily found out they were pregnant. So this season we get to see just how long they can keep this a secret, their panic and preparation for their upcoming new addition, and how this changes the group dynamic. The sixth season ended with Barney’s wedding to a mystery bride, and this seventh season keeps you guessing as to the identity of Barney’s bride-to-be. Meanwhile, Ted and Robin both contemplate their relationships with ones who got away. Although, since it was revealed in the season six that Ted doesn’t meet the mother of his children until Barney’s wedding, it kind of defeats the mystery of his relationships this season as we know they are doomed to fail and that none of them will be “The One”.

In the seventh season, things get a bit more serious—with break-ups and new relationships, proposals, pregnancies, lots of apartment/house swapping, and little bit of loss. The characters are getting older and a bit more mature (even Barney!) and moving on to the next stages in their lives. The series embraces this, and even though some of these are common situations you’d find in many sitcoms, How I Met Your Mother still manages to make them feel fresh and funny. Lily and Marshall try to avoid discovering the sex of their baby, find Ted becoming way too involved in their pregnancy, and try to adjust to life in the suburbs. Meanwhile, Barney learns that he’s part Canadian, opens a bar called “Puzzles” with Ted, searches for Lily and Marshall’s hidden “private” videos, and enters a bet that could have him wearing Marshall’s ducky tie for a year.

The How I Met Your Mother writers room continues to do a great job with this seventh season. The series does a lot of jumping in time, and it is amazing how they manage to keep track of all that has happened, and are always working in random callbacks that reward long-time fans of the show. Each episode has at least two seemingly disparate stories going on, and I’m always impressed with how they magically converge in the end. Speaking of magic, the seventh season finale, “The Magician’s Code, Parts 1 & 2″, is a great example of this, and a really fun episode.

This seventh season sees the return of some great past guest stars like Chris Elliot as Lily’s dad, Bill Fagerbakke as Marshall’s dad, Kal Penn, Alexis Denisof, Wayne Brady, Nazanin Boniadi, and Ashley Williams. Some of the season’s new guest stars include Weird Al as himself; Martin Short as Garrison Cootes, Marshall’s boss; and Becki Newton as Quinn Garvey, the only woman who can out-play Barney. I really enjoyed Becki on Ugly Betty, and she makes a great new addition to the How I Met Your Mother cast.

Overall, the series continues to be fun and hilarious and has great replay value. I just wish they would identify the mother already!

What’s Included on the DVD:

Episodes:

• All 23 episodes of Season 7, including the double-length season finale (516 min)
  
  • Disc 1: “The Best Man”, “The Naked Truth”, “Ducky Tie”, “The Stinson Missile Crisis”, “Field Trip”, “Mystery vs. History”, “Noretta”, “The Slutty Pumpkin Returns”
    
  • Disc 2: “Disaster Averted”, “Tick, Tick, Tick…”, “The Rebound Girl”, “Symphony of Illumination”, “Tailgate”, “46 Minutes”, “The Burning Beekeeper”, “The Drunk Train”
    
  • Disc 3: “No Pressure”, “Karma”, “The Broath”, “Trilogy Time”, “Now We’re Even”, “Good Crazy”, “The Magician’s Code, Parts 1 & 2″
• Widescreen 1.78:1
• Audio: English DD 5.1
• English SDH, Spanish, French, Chinese subtitles

Extras:

• Neil Patrick Harris Gets His Star (4:32)
  Footage of Neil Patrick Harris getting his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Includes speeches by Jason Segel, Joss Whedon and Neil Patrick Harris.
• Guest Star Powers (3:33)
  Fun featurette that asks this season’s guest stars “What are you doing this week on How I Met Your Mother?” and “Do you have and special skills or hidden talents?”
• How We Wrote Your Mother: The True Stories Behind Some of HIMYM’s Bits (9:48)
  In this interesting featurette, the writers and creators talk about some of the stories this season that were inspired by some real events that happened to them or people they know.
• How We Make Your Mother: Behind the scenes of “The Magician’s Code, Part 2″ (9:06)
  Behind the scenes footage of prepping and filming of the season finale. It’s interesting to see how much of these “buildings” they film in are just partial sets built on a sound stage!
• Deleted Scenes (12:18)
  Deleted scenes from “The Naked Truth” (1:31), “Ducky Tie” (1:13), “The Slutty Pumpkin Returns” (1:20), “Disaster Averted” (2 scenes, 2:06), “Tick, Tick, Tick…” (:20), “The Drunk Train” (:21), “No Pressure” (2 scenes, 1:50), “Karma” (:29), “Good Crazy” (2 scenes, 1:44), “The Magician’s Code, Part 2″ (2 scenes, 1:24)
• Gag-Reel (4:42)
  A hilarious collection of crack-ups, flubbed and forgotten lines, prop failures and more.
• Audio Commentary on Select Episodes
  • Audio Commentary on “The Best Man” by Carter Bays and Craig Thomas (21:37)
    The executive producers use this commentary to discuss the season as a whole, and not just the season premiere.
    
  • Audio Commentary on “The Drunk Train” by Craig Gerard and Matthew Zinman (21:38)
    The writers of the episode discuss their episode and how the story came from their own experiences growing up in Long Island. They also talk about what it was like introducing the character of Quinn Garvey (played by Becki Newton).
    
  • Audio Commentary on “Karma” by Neil Patrick Harris and Becki Newton (21:36)
    Neil and Becki have a lot of fun playing off one another while talking about the episode.

Final Thoughts:

Despite originally airing in HD on CBS, How I Met Your Mother Season 7 only gets a Standard Definition Release. That said, the picture quality on this set is quite clear and I don’t really have any complaints about it or the Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack.

This DVD set contains all the major bonus features I look for—deleted scenes, audio commentary, behind the scenes footage and a gag reel. I really enjoyed the audio commentary by Neil Patrick Harris and Becki Newton—it would have been nice if some of the other cast members had also provided some commentary.

While the series may be getting a bit long in the tooth, and dragging out the whole meeting the mother story, I still find the wacky adventures of these friends to be funny, heartwarming, and fully entertaining.