How I Met Your Mother Looks to Season 8... and Beyond?

The 150th episode of How I Met Your Mother airs this coming Monday, a milestone few series reach. Not only that though, but the series is a bigger hit than ever, with its best ratings yet in Season 7.

How I Met Your Mother is already renewed for Season 8, but is that the end of the show? This past week, I was part of a group of TV journalists who sat down for lunch with HIMYM creators Craig Thomas and Carter Bays, to discuss what's to come on the series and the unique position the show is in for a situation comedy, as it heads towards the ultimate reveal the title promises.

Episode 150: While not treated in as big a manner as reaching episode 100 or 200, episode 150 is still a big accomplishment.

That being the case, Bays reveals the episode is "about Marshall and Lily finally, officially moving out to Long Island, so it's kind of actually a big group shift. Chris Elliot is in it. It's a great episode and Chris is great in the show. We did some really fun stuff. So it's a fitting 150, because it's about a moment of big change in the dynamic of the group."

However, Thomas and Bays already are revealing Marshall and Lily's time in Long Island won't last very long. Said Bays, "That's not a permanent living arrangement. It's pretty fun, the shifts that happen in terms of where Marshall and Lily end up and how it sets up the next season."

In a season that has seen a few characters from the past return, Bays noted, "The weirdest character that comes back is Monday night, Stripper Lily comes back around. As set up two years ago. Doppelganger, Stripper Lily comes back this coming Monday night and it's weird."

Alyson Hannigan is actually pregnant right now, a fact she revealed to the HIMYM producers right as they were planning this episode. Bays recalled her telling them, "I can't believe you're dressing me as a stripper this week! The only upside is that my boobs are looking really good right now." Added Bays, "Watch the episode. You'll see! She looks great!" He also couldn't resist joking, "Maybe Stripper Lily will be the mom. Who knows?"

The Mother of All Questions: As always, the actual question of who the Mother is hangs over the show. When it comes to who to eventually cast in the role, Bays said they wondered if they should go with, "A crazy big name, or someone you've never heard of? It's a running debate. And it's getting more important that we answer that debate the further into the show we get. We're getting there."

They also are aware of the question of whether the show might introduce the mother and that's the end, or we meet her and then the show continues on for awhile with her among the cast. Bays and Thomas say they have known the answer to that question for years, stating, "We have a plan, we just can't tell you."

Will There Be a Season 9?: When CBS renewed How I Met Your Mother through Season 8 last year, it was widely presumed that would mark the end of the show. But not so fast… As Bays noted, the show is having its, "Best ratings ever by a mile," and suddenly when it comes to when the show might end, "These discussion are ratcheted up now. Is it done at 8? Could there be more? And it's become a little bit of a different discussion. Because everyone's contracted through [Season 8] right now – the actors and everybody. It's something we're talking to everybody about and trying to figure it out."

At the same time, Thomas says they continue to ask themselves, "Creatively, what does the story demand? And we never want to keep the show on longer than it needs to, just like we wouldn't want to end it before it really should end. But that is part of it… it is the best job any of us have ever had and we love it. We love each other. We love working together. I can honestly say it's amazing hearing Jason Segel say he wants to stick around for as long as the story needs to go, because he's a guy with a big movie career ."

As far as getting to the end and the challenges of not knowing exactly how much time is left on the show, Thomas explained, "We know what the big mileposts are… but it's something creatively we need to figure out, which is how much space is there between those mileposts? One life event, is it a five episode condition or a one episode condition? And so a lot of that we're trying to figure it out."

Could There be a Spinoff or Continuation?: if How I Met Your Mother, as we know it, comes to an end in the next couple of years, is there room for some sort of continuation? Said Bays, "That's come up. We've had general conversations about rewinding to 2005 and then doing a series called How I Met Your Father, clearly from the perspective of what was happening with the mother all those years. And occasionally she'll stumble through MacLaren's and you'll see people in the background." Bays stressed, "We've joked about that… but maybe let's do that!"

Thomas said another idea they've talked about was, "Finish the story at the end of Season 8 and then Season 9 is, 'Oh, by the way kids, I left some stuff out,' and it's just 24 little stories that took place over the course of the series, here and there. Like, 'Here's something funny that happened in 2006.'"

Said Bays, with a laugh, "Jesus, the wig budget of that season! It would be prohibitively expensive."