How I Met Your Mother has drawn out the story of Ted Mosby telling his kids all about the personal and professional trials that supposedly lead to a meet-cute with their mother. But fan complaints about the drawn-out nature of the show—which will only get longer as the show stretches one wedding weekend over the final season—hasn’t fallen on deaf ears. For Comic-Con (Wait, How I Met Your Mother was at Comic-Con?), CBS brought out a final season preview where Ted’s kids finally got to fight back against their father’s laborious storytelling, delving into unimportant tangents about yogurt and falafel. It’s an uncharacteristically brazen moment from a CBS sitcom (though it wouldn’t air on the network), and one that expresses many viewer sentiments.
But if we’re being pedantic, How I Met Your Mother has aired 184 episodes so far, at an average of 22 minutes, meaning that the full story takes up around 67 hours, or close to three days at this point. That’s still an uncomfortably long time to sit and listen to the story, but not enough time to require a bucket or a spider farm for sustenance. Over-analysis aside, it’s a fun way to acknowledge the show’s shortcomings while drumming up anticipation for a final season that still won’t just get on with it.