The first season of How I Met Your Mother, an American sitcom created by Carter Bays and Craig Thomas, premiered on CBS in the United States on September 19, 2005 and concluded on May 15, 2006. The season was directed by Pamela Fryman and produced by Bays & Thomas Productions and 20th Century Fox Television. It consists of 22 episodes, each running approximately 22 minutes in length.
The season introduces Ted Mosby in the year 2030 as he sits his daughter and son down to tell them the story of how he met their mother. The story begins in 2005 with Ted as a single, 27-year-old architect living in Manhattan with his two best friends from college: Marshall Eriksen, a law student, and Lily Aldrin, a kindergarten teacher, who have been dating for almost nine years when Marshall proposes. Their engagement causes Ted to think about marriage and finding his soul mate, much to the disgust of his self-appointed best friend Barney Stinson. Ted begins his search for his perfect mate and meets an ambitious young reporter, Robin Scherbatsky, whom he quickly falls in love with. Robin, however, doesn’t want to rush into a relationship and the two decide to be friends. Ted begins dating a baker, Victoria, but when she moves to Germany for a culinary fellowship, Ted and Robin nearly have sex. Victoria breaks up with Ted, and Robin begins to distance herself from him. Lily begins to wonder if she’s missed any opportunities because of her relationship with Marshall and decides to pursue an art fellowship in San Francisco, breaking her engagement in the process.