TV URBAN LEGEND: Victoria was still going to be the back-up mother on How I Met Your Mother as late as Season 8.
As I noted in an old TV Legends Revealed, had How I Met Your Mother ended before finishing its first season, Ashley Williams' Victoria would have been revealed as the mother in the series (the set-up of the long-running CSB sitcom was that a man named Ted Mosby, played by Josh Radnor, was telling his kids in the year 2030 the long and drawn out story of how he met their mother, although the future version of Ted telling the story through voiceovers was actually not Radnor, but the late, great Bob Saget). Instead, at the end of Season 8, viewers got to meet the mother, played by Cristin Milioti, and the ninth and final season showed flash-forwards of the relationship between Ted and the Mother (their first date, his wedding proposal, the birth of their kids) while we waited to finally see their first meeting in the series finale.
However, a legend has sprung up that Victoria actually would have ALSO served as the backup mother had the show been canceled in the time leading up to the ultimate reveal of the Mother at the end of Season 8. Here's an example of this version of the legend, "Later, though, creators Craig Thomas and Carter Bays stated outright that had the show been canceled before season 8, Victoria would have been the Mother instead of Tracy. It was a contingency plan, with the writers feeling that they left open enough history between Victoria and Ted that it would make sense for them to end up together."
Is that true?
WHO WAS VICTORIA ON HOW I MET YOUR MOTHER?
As a recap, when they first launched How I Met Your Mother, there was no way for the producers, Carter Bays and Craig Thomas, to know if the show would make it past the initially ordered episodes (typically, networks only order 13 episodes of new TV series. If the first 13 do well, then the networks order an additional nine episodes to make it a total of 22 episodes. That’s why you’ll often hear of TV shows receiving “the back nine." The back nine are often ordered well before the first 13 finish airing, as it is typically obvious fairly quickly whether a new show will get a full season). Therefore, they had to have a contingency plan in place if the show never got more than the initial thirteen episodes.
That contingency plan was the thirteenth episodes itself, the How I Met Your Mother classic, “Drumroll, Please.” In it, Ted tracks down a mysterious woman he met at a wedding (the woman, later named Victoria, is played by Ashley Williams) and then has to decide whether to actually go meet her or to just keep their wedding date a “perfect memory.” In the end, he decides to go for it and visits her cupcake shop (she was at the wedding since she did the wedding cake) and she is thrilled to see him (she says “Oh, thank god” when he walks in) and they embrace.
Had the show never made it past episode thirteen, there would have been a voiceover for that final scene noting that this was how he met their mother. However, the show did get the “back nine” and by the finale of Season 1, Victoria was no longer involved with Ted. The creators were pretty confident in getting a Season 2, so there were no plans for a resolution of who the mother was in the finale of Season 1.
WOULD VICTORIA HAVE REALLY BEEN THE MOTHER AFTER SEASON 1?
The last time a season ended with the producers not knowing whether the show would be canceled was in Season 2, and rather than reveal the Mother then, the season ended with Ted talking about his then breakup with Robin (Colby Smulders)...
And as hard as it was at the time, in the end we both got what we wanted. She did eventually go on to live in Argentina, and Morocco, Greece, Russia, even Japan for a little while. And I? Well, I met your mom.
By the time Season 3 ended, the producers knew the show was no longer in any danger of being canceled at the end of the season (Ted's Season 3 girlfriend, Stella, played by Sarah Chalke, would have been the Mother had the show been canceled at the end of Season 3, but the producers knew by the end of the season that they were clearly going to be renewed). From that point forward, they always knew whether the show would end, and could then plan accordingly. And never was the plan to reveal that the mother was Victoria.
The whole thing came down to a Bustle article that misinterpreted Bays and Thomas talking about how Victoria was the contingency plan in Season 1 as them saying that she was the contingency plan all the way up until the reveal of the mother in Season 8. That was not the case, Bays and Thomas were simply repeating the story above about Victoria being the backup in Season 1, which you can see if you read the Deadline article that Bustle used as its source. That Bustle article has been cited a bunch of different times in the years since, including the earlier quote about "creators Craig Thomas and Carter Bays stated outright that had the show been canceled before season 8, Victoria would have been the Mother."
The legend is...
STATUS: False
Thanks to my pal, Loren, for inadvertently suggesting this one, when we were recently chatting about the finale of How I Met Your Mother.
Be sure to check out my archive of TV Legends Revealed for more urban legends about the world of TV. Click here for more legends specifically about How I Met Your Mother.
Feel free (heck, I implore you!) to write in with your suggestions for future installments! My e-mail address is bcronin@legendsrevealed.com.