‘How I Met Your Mother’ season 9 official, will be final season

Just in case you for whatever reason believed that the producers of “How I Met Your Mother” were getting set to pull a fast one on you by giving the sitcom more than one addition season to tie together all of the loose ends, know this: the show has officially been renewed, and it will be for its ninth and final season. It took a long time to make this news official following a number of early reports saying that it would happen “any day now,” and the last cast member to really agree to come back for 24 more episodes was the busy man known as Jason Segel.

CBS broke the news with a press release on Wednesday, and it included the following statement from their programming head Nina Tassler:

“Through eight years, How I Met Your Mother has mastered the art of leading-edge comedy, emotional water-cooler moments and pop culture catch-phrases. We are excited for Carter [Bays], Craig [Thomas], Pam Fryman and this amazing cast to tell the final chapter and reveal television’s most mysterious mother to some of TV’s most passionate fans.”

If we really wanted to get speculative about this, we could say “hmm” at the insinuation that we will not meet the mother until the end of next season, even though Thomas said in a conference call earlier this week that Barney and Robin’s wedding would be taking place during the season 8 finale. Then again, we are probably reading way too much into semantics in a statement designed just to make people excited.

For CBS, this move ensures that their successful comedy lineup remains together for at least a little while longer. There are hopes to bring “Two and a Half Men” back for a season 11, and if that happens, the network will only have one regular timeslot to fill Monday nights at 8:30 p.m. Eastern time.

Are you glad that this announcement is finally out of the way? If you want to read more scoop on the rest of “How I Met Your Mother” season 8, you can do so over at the link here.

Photo: CBS