Jon Cryer, left, and Ashton Kutcher in ‘Two and a Half Men’ on CBS (Pic: Grab from CBS.com)
It is Saturday morning and time to weigh in on some weighty global issues. Such as “Two and a Half Men” post-Charlie Sheen, for instance.
How shall I put this delicately? The show sucks now.
Sheen has not (yet) paid me to say this but in the aftermath of his fiery departure the show has lost its verve. One always knew that the show was overwhelmingly dependent on Sheen’s natural credibility as a caustic womanizer who treats his good fortune as his fourth standby mistress.
The show’s creators Chuck Lorre and Lee Anderson as well as their writers are a group of obviously intelligent and talented people, but so far Ashton Kutcher feels like an awkward interloper. Of course, it is possible that his character of Walden Schmidt, an Internet billionaire nursing a heartbreak, will grow into the show. So far though, in their enthusiasm to tailor the material to suit Kutcher’s personality, the writers are producing mostly puerilely risqué material too focused on gratuitously sexual humor. Sheen’s character Charlie Harper had intrinsic wit that Kutcher’s goofball persona so sorely lacks.
(I had written this post up to here yesterday and was pleasantly surprised to learn this morning that Sheen is slamming the show.)
TMZ, the ultimate arbiter of the celebrity-paparazzi dynamic, reports Sheen as saying about the slide in the show’s ratings, “People aren't stupid, you know? Not all of them.”
On Kutcher, Sheen says, “He's doing the best he can. I don't think the role is cursed, but I'm extremely disappointed with how they're handling what I left behind.”
Notwithstanding its bumper ratings for the season premiere recently, my reaction to the opener as well as the shows which have followed has been, “Really!” I no longer watch the show, which is saying a lot because I am in the Sheen demographic (four years older than him) and once made it a habit of unfailingly watching it.
It is entirely possible that with time I may learn to like it without Sheen but why bother? A part of the problem is that the Walden character seems like he is guesting and may have to leave soon. The casting may have seemed inspired on paper but the welding between the show’s original characters, particularly Jon Cryer as Alan Harper, and Walden feels too lumpy. The show’s producers should have continued the original Charlie Harper character by replacing Sheen with someone like David Spade. I know Spade would not have been available because of his hit series “Rules of Engagement”.
I could be wrong but there is a combination of fatigue and laziness in the show’s material now. It is as if the writers have lost the inspiration with the ugly exit of both Charlie Sheen and Charlie Harper.
P.S.: I do know that this is just a television show but I had to say something, anything to keep the blog going.
