The Neil Patrick Harris-ization of James Van Der Beek is a work in progress.

First the former lead of the teen drama Dawson's Creek (WB, 1998-2003) played "himself" on Don't Trust the B____ in Apartment 23 (ABC, 2012-'13), just as Neil Patrick Harris, the former lead of the teen dramedy Doogie Howser, M.D. (ABC, 1989-'93), did in three "Harold & Kumar" movies between 2004 and 2011.

This spring Van Der Beek was part of the ensemble cast of Friends With Better Lives, a CBS sitcom in which he played a cad with a heart of gold (at least in the scenes I saw) similar to Harris's on How I Met Your Mother, the CBS sitcom that ended a nine-season run on March 31, the night Friends With Better Lives debuted.

(Van Der Beek also guest-starred on How I Met Your Mother three times as a parallel-dimension version of Harris. Okay, so the second half of that last sentence isn't true, but I wish the writers would've considered it.)

FWBL was recently canceled after eight episodes. Next stop: Broadway?