‘How I Met Your Mother’ season 9: Why Neil Patrick Harris is happy with format

There are not too many opportunities out there to end a show in the way in which you want. It’s a victory lap, or a pat on the back for the truly deserving. More often than not, you are really forced to say goodbye with your tail tucked between your legs as you are either canceled, or you find your ending rushed in some way by a network desperate to get something else on the air.

Luckily, the folks over at “How I Met Your Mother” have not been forced to endure such turmoil over the course of their run, and it leads to this: An epic ninth season that will tell a story over the course of 24 episodes that is over the course of two days: The big wedding weekend of Barney and Robin. It may sound strange and silly to stretch things out this long (and in some ways it is), but the potential for entertaining storytelling is definitely there. We are going to have an opportunity to see some more callbacks to the past, and an emotional story that really culminates in that moment of Ted meeting the girl of his dreams.

So for one star in Neil Patrick Harris, how does it feel to be ending a show like this? He had at one time a show in “Doogie Houzer, M.D.” that went off the air after several seasons in a manner in which he and the crew was not ready for, and then he also had “Stark Raving Mad,” which was outright canceled before it really got going (similar to Jason Segel’s “Freaks and Geeks,” but folks dug the latter show more).

Speaking on the subject of getting to say goodbye in a chat with the Los Angeles Times promoting his Emmy nomination, here is what Neil had to say:

“It is [nice to end the show this way] on a whole bunch of levels. ‘Doogie,’ that was a drag because we all found out that the show had ended before there was any closure to it … but this has been nice … Not often do you get to have a show to have this sort of longevity.”

Harris also proclaimed that as someone who loves the a “big, big fan of the structural uniqueness” of the “How I Met Your Mother” world, and he would not have been so excited to end the show this year on a high note if Robin had got cold feet, and she started dating a new guy who was a “guest star for six episodes.” (Oh, how we have seen this before.)

This is not the only chat Harris has had this week about the show coming to a close: You can watch a lengthy video here, that also includes Neil talking about his gig at the Emmys in September.

Photo: CBS