Ever since How I Met Your Mother ended its nine-season run on CBS in 2014, producer 20th Century Fox TV had been looking to launch a spinoff from a female point of view. Now the studio also would like to bring back the mothership series, which 20th TV chairman Dana Walden called one of the biggest comedies in the studio library, for a reunion.

“I hope we will have an opportunity to revisit these characters and tell these stories if (the creators and stars) have the desire to do it,” she said during Fox’s upfronts press call on Monday. It’s a beloved show that still continues to be popular all over the world.”

There would be significant logistical issues — creators Carter Bays & Craig Thomas are under a deal at Sony TV and the cast members are doing other things; star Josh Radnor for instance is the lead of new NBC drama Rise. But, as the Will & Grace reunion on NBC proved (its co-creator Max Mutchick also is under an overall deal elsewhere and Eric McCormack has a Netflix series), nothing is impossible.

As for the spinoff, the studio had remained high on the premise, occasionally revisiting the idea, even after Bays and Thomas moved to Sony. And earlier this season, a new version, titled How I Met Your Father, was being written on spec by This Is Us co-executive producers Isaac Aptaker and Elizabeth Berger. The project was tabled when the duo were elevated to exec producers and co-showrunners on This Is Us for Season 2.