TV show reviews

Two and a Half Men
Although airing out of "Everybody Loves Raymond" and into "CSI: Miami" guarantees an audience, for once we have a new comedy, CBS's "Two and a Half Men," that is worthy of this coveted time period. In a new twist on the familiar "Odd Couple" formula, a wealthy and carefree bachelor (Golden Globe® winner Charlie Sheen) finds his world interrupted when uptight and about-to-be-divorced brother Alan ('Pretty in Pink' star Jon Cryer) and his 10-year-old son ('Bringing Down the House' co-star Angus T. Jones) move in. Under one roof, and with two very different personalities, Sheen and Cryer are reminiscent of Jack Klugman and Tony Randall as Oscar and Felix. Without the burden of being compared to Michael J. Fox on "Spin City," calm, cool and collected Charlie Sheen can really let loose on this series as Charlie Harper. And for Jon Cryer, who has tried and failed four times to find a hit comedy (remember "The Famous Teddy Z," "Getting Personal," "Partners" or "The Trouble With Normal"?), No. 5 looks like a definite keeper. Thanks to "Raymond," "Two and a Half Men" will get initial tune-in. But because of Sheen, Cryer and little Angus (who has a few more years of cuteness left before the awkward teen years set in), everyone might really love this new sitcom. It's the new series, comedy or drama, most likely to succeed in 2003-04.

Charlie is a successful and affluent bachelor in his mid-thirties who has a career writing advertisement jingles. Charlie resides in a large ocean front home in Malibu, California and is portrayed as a chauvinist womanizer. The plot begins when his uptight brother Alan becomes divorced from his wife Judith (whom he thinks may be a lesbian), loses his house to her and has to move in with his brother. His 10-year-old son Jake often stays for weekends and at other times.

Rose is Charlie's zany neighbor and female stalker. We learn Rose had a one-night-stand with Charlie shortly before the show started and keeps entering his house through the patio in the most inopportune moments, expressing her ambition of obtaining Charlie, and often serving as a good albeit crazy friend and advisor. Although obviously troubled herself, Rose has stated a few times that she has a Master's degree in psychology.

In one episode, Rose's father, Harvey, (played by Charlie Sheen's real-life father Martin Sheen), asks Charlie of his intentions with his daughter after an apparent second one-night-stand between the two. Harvey then meets Charlie's and Alan's mother and has an affair with her, stalking her and popping in just like his daughter does. We then learn from Harvey's mother that "that's what happens when you marry a first cousin," explaining Rose's family's dementia soon after Rose revealing the one-night-stand was not real; they only woke up together.

Another important recurring character is Berta, the sarcastic cleaning lady with an acid tongue.

Alan and Charlie's mother, Evelyn (played by Holland Taylor) is a hip, wealthy, early-sixties, many-times-divorced, slightly slutty, controlling mother of the brothers. Charlie and Alan attribute their life's problems to the dark manipulative force their mother manages to exert upon them even now, adding to the caustic humor of the show in the situations when depicting their vain attempts to escape her.

Another recurring theme in the show is the conflict of personalities between the two diametrically opposed siblings, the relaxed, good-life, woman-catching, commitment-phobic Charlie and the uptight self-conscious nerdy Alan. Alan can sometimes appear to be jealous of Charlie's lifestyle, and can sometimes try to stop Charlie's decisions. This also provides opportunities for comedy in the show, with Alan, having admitted defeat, saying comments such as 'it's like talking to a horny chimp', or 'it's like trying to talk Shakespeare to a Hershey bar'