class=”alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-53276″ style=”margin: 10px;” title=”image007″ src=”https://www.heyuguys.com/images/2010/11/image007-112×150.jpg” alt=”” width=”112″ height=”150″ />For six seasons, womanising Charlie Harper, his anal retentive failure of a brother Alan, and Alan’s problem child son Jake have entertained us with a selection of pee, fart and masturbation jokes. In every man’s life, however, the time comes to grow up. At the end of season six, Charlie had hooked up with the woman of his dreams, and popped the question. Does season seven, then, see the drunken playboy reformed?
The biggest problem that faces any sitcom that extend beyond three or four seasons is that of development. There is only so long that the same dynamics, relationships and personality traits can carry a show before it becomes repetitive. In the past we’ve seen comedy shows like Friends and Fraser forced to bring foreshadowed relationships to fruition. With Two and a Half men, the title is the sum of its principal cast, so whilst the sentiment is the same, they’ve had to ship the characters in.
Maybe this is why the relationship between Charlie and fiance Chelsea just doesn’t sit right. Without the years of character development and story arch behind the character, Chelsea comes across as very much the interloper that Alan must feel she is. Appearing out of the blue, she has captured the central character’s heart. A difficult sell for any series, but when it is serial shagger Charlie Harper, you can’t help but feel it would take someone special to tie him down. The biggest problem with the opening third of Two and a Half Men is that Chelsea isn’t it, or at least doesn’t come across as such.
For someone with the history of Charlie, the woman he finally falls for has to have a certain spark, and unfortunatley Chelsea not only lacks this, she doesn’t even come across as a particularly charismatic or even likeable character. This makes it hard to easily accept Charlie’s new outlook on life. The caring, committed Charlie is like a neutered dog. Robbed of his potency, half of the joke of the entire series is lost. Whilst this could be a good opportunity to freshen up the show, and use their relationship as a way to explore different life issues, it ends up being an avenue for slightly different puerile humour.
Two and a Half Men does not have the ambition or sophistication of the aforementioned Fraser. When Charlie has a Colonoscopy, it is used not as a way to explore mortality, or facing the loss of true love when you have spent so long looking for it, but as five minute gag when he uses the procedure as an excuse not to spend time with Chelsea’s family.
This probably sounds overly harsh. The foundation of the show, the pee, fart and masturbation jokes are still there, and are still funny. The strength of the show is in the dysfunctional relationship between Charlie and hapless brother Alan, and it is the character moments and banter between these two that are the best parts of the show. Charlie Sheen and Jon Cryer are very good at what they do, and bounce off of each other wonderfully. Angus T Jones as Jake does a decent job of a very one-note character, having lost his second note with the weight that has been jettisoned over the last few seasons. Thankfully, the character has reached such an age that the eating jokes have found a ready replacement with the inevitable dating jokes. Yes, the tubby little kid from season one has become a hormonal teenager, and with two male role models with relationship histories at either end of the pole, it looks like being a bumpy ride.
As the season progresses, and Charlies forthcoming nuptials become inevitably uncertain, the season begins to lose its way. We witness a wedding, a couple of arrests, and more than a few break-ups. Having lost its purpose, season seven meanders somewhat to the end, with the highpoint of the climax the introduction of a new love interest for Alan. Courtney Thorne-Smith’s Lyndsey, a poster child for bad mothers, is a breath of fresh air. Outrageously dismissive of her son’s emotional wellbeing, a great performance by Thorne-Smith shows that it is possible to introduce new female characters, with personality, successfully.
A strange season really. Beginning with great purpose, but fizzling out towards the end storywise, the bedrock of laughs is nevertheless still there, and Two and a Half Men continues to be one of the best conventional sitcoms on television. With Charlie Sheen’s continued involvement looking increasingly unlikely with each subsequent season, it could well be that Two and a Half Men’s days will soon be numbered. No bad thing really. It is a very entertaining show, but without the great ambition of a show like Fraser, it is hard to see how the same contained little world of Charlie, Alan and Jake can continue to exist in its current form. With Jake now coming of age, if it isn’t careful the show could find itself being rename Three Men before the plug is pulled. And as we’ve seen so many times, a spin-off can only ever shame its parent show. (That last line would have been so much more effective if i hadn’t used Fraser as an example several times…)
Two and a Half Men – Season 7 is out now.
Bazmann
