In “Two and a Half Men,” one of the new shows that is making CBS the network with the most to crow about in this troubled television season, Charlie Sheen plays a wastrel-slash-lothario.
This is, save for a shading or two, the same character he played when he stepped in for Michael J. Fox on ABC’s “Spin City,” a cleaned up version of the person he played for years in the tabloid press.
Can’t wait for the “Inside the Actor’s Studio” episode in which James Lipton lets Sheen expound on his growth as an actor.
The sitcom, alas, is as uninspired as Sheen’s choice of acting roles. A look at two brothers (Sheen and Jon Cryer) and one’s son living together under contrived circumstances, it’s not terrible. Cryer makes the most of the material, and Chuck Lorre, the man behind the often amusing “Dharma & Greg,” is an executive producer.
But for every chuckle there are another two attempts at same that are just obvious and sit-commy to the extreme, and Sheen is too much of a lead weight to make a cad likable.
But this is America, and as McDonald’s proves every day, here quality doesn’t count nearly as much as popularity.
“Two and a Half Men’s” ability to retain some 85 percent of the “Everybody Loves Raymond” audience — a solid performance for a first-year comedy — makes it a key part of the lineup that has CBS as the only clear winner this season.
Despite embarrassing and high-profile cancellations this month (“The Reagans” mini-series, the Michael Jackson special), the one-time “Tiffany Network” is all but guaranteed a November sweeps win in total viewers and households and should finish a close second to NBC in adults 18-to-49.
As of late last week, it was the only one of the six networks to be up over last November sweeps in all of those categories.
“With four new series finding an audience [`Two and a Half Men,’ `Navy NCIS,’ `Joan of Arcadia’ and `Cold Case’], the successful moves of `King of Queens’ to Wednesday and `JAG’ to Friday, and ongoing success for benchmark series like `Everybody Loves Raymond,’ `CSI’ and `Survivor,’ CBS has made solid inroads this season,” says Marc Berman, who writes a daily on-line ratings column for the trade journal Mediaweek.
“Each night of the week has a successful ingredient and the network has experienced solid gains on Wednesday and Friday, two problematic nights.”
Another key point, Berman says: “Unlike the competition, CBS appeals to a wide-range audience, with programs targeted to all age groups.”
CBS is up 10 percent from last November in total viewers, according to Berman’s analysis of Nielsen Media Research ratings, while the others are all down, ranging from ABC’s 6 percent loss to NBC’s 13 percent.
And in the 18-to-49-year-olds that advertisers most covet and CBS has had the hardest time reaching, CBS is up 2 percent.
The other networks are down double digits, from ABC’s 10 percent decline to WB’s 19.
For what it’s worth, two of the four new shows Berman mentioned are actually pretty good television, too, namely “Joan of Arcadia” and “Cold Case.”
As for “Two and a Half Men,” Monday (8:30, WBBM-Ch. 2) it brings in Sheen’s real-life wife, Denise Richards.
She guest-stars as an old flame Sheen’s character tries to impress by putting together a traditional family Thanksgiving dinner.
At least it doesn’t open with him in bed or in the shower with anyone and the kid having to pretend to find this more amusing than unsettling.
And there is an inspired last scene, a wonderful poke at sitcom artificiality that I won’t give away.
But along the way, we are asked to laugh at a reference to the brothers’ mother as “Mom the Impaler,” at a blue-collar stereotype of a housekeeper and at a recurring character, an obsessed old flame of Sheen, who keeps climbing into the beachfront house over the balcony.
Compared with “Raymond’s” strong new Thanksgiving episode in the half-hour prior (8 p.m.), watching this is like eating uncooked cranberries.
