AI Summary
5 min readSarah Chalke got the call to play Stella on How I Met Your Mother while sitting at Pinkberry with Nicole Sullivan. It was a Tuesday. The episode was already in rehearsal. Someone else had fallen out of the part. She drove over immediately, read the script, and walked into a run-through that same day. That week, she was also about to start shooting Scrubs again after the Writers Guild strike ended. For a stretch, she would wake up at 5 a.m. to shoot HIMYM, then drive to the Scrubs set in the same lab coat. She remembers reversing into a pillar in a parking garage and thinking, “Slow down.”
The Chaos of the Strike Episode
This episode, “Ten Sessions” (Season 3, Episode 13), was made under extreme pressure. The 2007–2008 Writers Guild strike had shut down production for three months. When it ended, the show had to produce nine episodes in ten and a half weeks. Craig Thomas and Carter Bays wrote this one in a hurry. Two things needed to happen simultaneously: cast a major love interest for Ted, and write a part for Britney Spears, whose people had reached out. The show was not yet a hit, and the team felt they had to prove they were worth keeping on the air. So they went big: Sarah Chalke, the two-minute date, and Britney Spears all landed in the same 22-minute episode.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:00) **Ad: Bavarian Meats Snack Sticks** - Josh and Craig promote a snack sponsor, describing its convenience for busy parents.
- 2 (02:08) **Ad: Labcorp On-Demand Health Testing** - A sponsor segment promoting at-home health testing kits.
- 3 (03:39) **Listener Letter: Revisiting Stella's Character** - A listener named Stella writes in about her evolving view of the character Stella.
- 4 (05:37) **Welcome & Guest Introduction** - Hosts Josh Rader and Craig Thomas welcome guest Sarah Chalke to discuss S3E13 "Ten Sessions."
- 5 (07:19) **Casting Sarah Chalke: A Scrub's Superfan Origin** - Craig explains how Sarah was cast after the writers' strike, coming from her role on Scrubs.
- 6 (10:00) **The Show's Enduring Legacy** - The group discusses how HIMYM and Scrubs have found new generations of fans.
- 7 (12:36) **The Making of "Ten Sessions": A Post-Strike Scramble** - The hosts and Sarah recall the chaotic, last-minute production of this episode.
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Guests on this episode
Show Notes
Josh and Craig are joined by Sarah Chalke to revisit “Ten Sessions,” one of the series’ most beloved episodes, and the conversation is every bit as joyful as the episode itself. Sarah shares behind-the-scenes stories about being cast at the last minute, balancing Scrubs and How I Met Your Mother simultaneously, and filming the iconic two-minute date, while Josh and Craig reflect on emerging from the Writers Guild strike, welcoming Britney Spears to the show, and why the episode became such a perfect blend of inventive storytelling, heartfelt romance, and rapid-fire comedy. They also reminisce about the extraordinary chemistry that made Ted and Stella’s relationship work, celebrate the cast and crew’s intricate choreography behind the episode’s biggest moments, and explore why “Ten Sessions” remains one of the defining episodes of the series.
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