Ted Mosby

Ted Mosby is an architect in New York, telling his kids the long, winding story of how he met their mother. At the outset he's just watched his best friend get engaged, and it's set him spinning on the search for The One — earnest, romantic, a little self-important about it, and hopelessly prone to grand gestures.

The whole premise runs through him, and the show trusts him to be maddening as often as he's charming — pretentious, overconfident, sometimes oblivious to what's obvious to everyone else at the bar. Josh Radnor plays the sincerity completely straight, which is what lets the joke and the ache both land.