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Will CBS dump 2 1/2 Men ?

gregg75

gregg75

I think it lives on for one more season, but it's getting pretty tired, I think. I don't watch either, but a look at the ratings confirms it's still a draw.
 
It's consistently a Top 10 show. Had there not been the change to Kutcher, Sheen would likely be making too much by now to produce affordably, but Kutcher is getting less. I think it stays if Lorre will continue to produce it.
 
umfan said:
I think it lives on for one more season, but it's getting pretty tired, I think. I don't watch either, but a look at the ratings confirms it's still a draw.
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It's coasting on an old reputation. It jumped the shark, but like all long-running shows, it takes a few seasons to die after the shark has been jumped. I give it one and a half more seasons.
 
Time for Two and a Half Men to die. The show sucks. There have been maybe, at the most, 4 or 5 funny moments in 3 *years*. Compared to the dozens and dozens of "laughing my butt off" moments of Charlie/Alan, it's a shell of its own self.

-crainbebo
 
"Jumping the shark" means a totally illogical situation which doesn't make sense or fit the story. Example: Fonzie jumping the shark while water skiing on Happy Days.

2 1/2 Men never jumped the shark. Rather, it had a significant cast change. Sheen left and was replaced by Kutcher (which IMHO was a fatal mistake for the show). Then the writers virtually ignored other cast members who had worked for seven years to make the show great.

The first six seasons were funny as hell. The cast was perfect. Season 7 showed the fraying edges of Charlie Sheen's mental instability and you could see trouble ahead. Then Kutcher came aboard and everything went to hell in a handbasket. Lorre must have lost his mind along with his writers. It was an effort to remain popular with the young adult viewers but it has worked only partially. A large part of the audience has abandoned the show and it clearly doesn't have much time left. CBS will probably try keeping it on the air until the last gasp though if for no other reason than syndication (the more episodes, the better).
 
landtuna said:
"Jumping the shark" means a totally illogical situation which doesn't make sense or fit the story. Example: Fonzie jumping the shark while water skiing on Happy Days.
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I'm sorry, but you are mistaken. If Marina Orlova was still doing "Hot For Words", she'd explain that though the etymology of the phrase was that incident in Happy Days, it is not limited to totally illogical situations which don't make sense or fit the story. From the Urban Dictionary, Jump the Shark is "a term to describe a moment when something that was once great has reached a point where it will now decline in quality and popularity." They acknowledge that the "Origin of this phrase comes from a Happy Days episode where the Fonz jumped a shark on waterskis. Thus was labeled the lowest point of the show."

TV Guide bought the "Jump the Shark" website, but a new one based on the same theme arose in its place, Bone The Fish.

Now, as for when Two and a Half Men jumped the shark, there are conflicting theories. Some place the moment at just before Charlie Sheen left the show. Others, list it as when Aston Kutcher joined the cast, but not because of his acting skills. The show "jumped the shark" when the storyline on how he bought the house and let Alan continue to live there was simply unbelievable. Alan was usually Charlie's straight man. Had Walden bought the house and then hired Alan to run things, and Alan continued to have the same personality and serve as Walden's straight man, that might have worked. Turning Alan into the central comedic character is what caused the show to "jump the shark". And, Alan suddenly becoming the funny one is a totally illogical situation which doesn't make sense or fit the story.
 
Avid Listener said:
I'm sorry, but you are mistaken. If Marina Orlova was still doing "Hot For Words", she'd explain that though the etymology of the phrase was that incident in Happy Days, it is not limited to totally illogical situations which don't make sense or fit the story. From the Urban Dictionary, Jump the Shark is "a term to describe a moment when something that was once great has reached a point where it will now decline in quality and popularity." They acknowledge that the "Origin of this phrase comes from a Happy Days episode where the Fonz jumped a shark on waterskis. Thus was labeled the lowest point of the show."
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Well then, we are both incompletely correct (or incorrect, as the case may be). Since I was not a regular viewer of Happy Days after the initial couple of years I couldn't tell you when the series began to decline although I would have put it much earlier than the shark jumping incident.

Avid Listener said:
Now, as for when Two and a Half Men jumped the shark, there are conflicting theories. Some place the moment at just before Charlie Sheen left the show. Others, list it as when Aston Kutcher joined the cast, but not because of his acting skills. The show "jumped the shark" when the storyline on how he bought the house and let Alan continue to live there was simply unbelievable. Alan was usually Charlie's straight man. Had Walden bought the house and then hired Alan to run things, and Alan continued to have the same personality and serve as Walden's straight man, that might have worked. Turning Alan into the central comedic character is what caused the show to "jump the shark". And, Alan suddenly becoming the funny one is a totally illogical situation which doesn't make sense or fit the story.
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I was an avid watcher of "2 1/2" and as stated before placed the moment of decline at the end of season 6. Season 7 is almost dull and lifeless compared to earlier episodes.

Charlie left the series at the end of season 7 so the show was already in decline. Kutcher killed it (personally along with very poor writing as you have already mentioned).

We will disagree on one point though and that is that Jon Cryer's character was not the primary comedic character. I maintain he was and deserved at least equal billing and pay to Sheen. Without Cryer this show would not have been the success it was initially as most of the really funny scenarios depend largely on the Alan character as the primary inducer of laughter with Charlie being the straight man.

The really tragic problem insofar as the decline after Sheen's departure was the abandonment of the excellent cast of secondary characters. Berta, the mom, Judith and Herb etc. were virtually banished after Kutcher came on board making a bad situation totally inept. Lorre should have been shot for what he did to the cast that made him rich.

And we will never agree on Kutcher's acting abilities. As far as I (and a lot of others are concerned) he is a total waste of space. in this show as in his movies. A modern day Jerry Lewis.
 
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Alan is supposed to be the "supporting main character". During season 1-8, Charlie was the main, Alan was supporting, and Jake was the kid, also supporting actor. I still love the syndicated reruns with Charlie and Kandi, Chelsea etc. They are so funny! Jake was plenty funny as a young 11-13 year old kid and now he's stupid. I don't see Berta as much anymore either-she was a funny housekeeper.

-crainbebo
 
crainbebo said:
Alan is supposed to be the "supporting main character". During season 1-8, Charlie was the main, Alan was supporting, and Jake was the kid, also supporting actor. I still love the syndicated reruns with Charlie and Kandi, Chelsea etc. They are so funny! Jake was plenty funny as a young 11-13 year old kid and now he's stupid. I don't see Berta as much anymore either-she was a funny housekeeper.

-crainbebo
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Exactly! Alan got some laughs from the very beginning, but his character served to either set up Charlie for Charlie to make a joke, or to react to Charlie and thereby get a laugh. That balance was a precarious, yet effective combination. Lucy wouldn't have been Lucy without Ethel. LaVerne wouldn't have been LaVerne without Shirley. Charlie wouldn't have been Charlie without Alan. "Anger Management" proves this. But, when they brought Walden in to replace Charlie, they also tried to make Alan into Charlie, supported by Walden. Except sometimes it's Walden supported by Alan. The balance isn't right. The chemistry isn't there.

On top of that, the budget to pay Cryer and Kutcher was so big that they couldn't afford the old regulars, except Conchata Farrell, so that great (but expensive) ensemble supporting cast was all but eliminated.

They also can't seem to maintain any sense of story continuity. Whatever happened to Judith's baby that might have been Alan's? Whatever happened to Evelyn's relationship with Lindsey's mother, played by Georgia Engel? What about Walden's new business with Patton Oswalt? It's sad to see what was a genuinely funny sitcom sink so low, so fast.

On the plus side, though they're now going for cheap laughs instead of storyline, their cheap laughs are still working for me. And Courtney Thorne Smith remains one of the hottest women on television, especially in a corset.
 
Good! Sheldon, Leonard, Penny and others will probably be on CBS for many more years to come. The show is very funny!

-crainbebo
 
I've forgotten exactly what the joke was about Mila Kunis. Walden was asking which woman to have sex with and which one to kill. His dislike of Mila Kunis was funny because Ashton and Mila were a couple on "That 70s Show". Now I find out they're getting married in real life, which makes the joke funnier.

Meanwhile, Red is on "Resurrection".
 
Avid Listener said:
Had Walden bought the house and then hired Alan to run things, and Alan continued to have the same personality and serve as Walden's straight man, that might have worked. Turning Alan into the central comedic character is what caused the show to "jump the shark". And, Alan suddenly becoming the funny one is a totally illogical situation which doesn't make sense or fit the story.
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I never have been able to make sense out of Alan continuing to stay there, but Walden did finally give Alan a job this season.

I think the constant references to Alan never leaving, and just about everything else on this show, are funny.

And Jon Cryer, regardless of what people think, did win an Emmy after he became the lead.
 
They need to 'kill' Jeff Strongman. If that 'saga' is going to carry over to next year, then they'd have been better off cancelling it. They could revisit maybe one or two of the above-mentioned 'forgotten' subplots and characters who aren't on anymore, but the writers were probably hoping viewers forgot about Evelyn and Lindsey's mom, Patton Oswalt, etc. On that note, this new guy, Barry (Clark Duke), actually seems promising, and could stay on, even if the character's recently-introduced sister doesn't return.
 
vchimpanzee said:
I've forgotten exactly what the joke was about Mila Kunis. Walden was asking which woman to have sex with and which one to kill. His dislike of Mila Kunis was funny because Ashton and Mila were a couple on "That 70s Show". Now I find out they're getting married in real life, which makes the joke funnier.

Meanwhile, Red is on "Resurrection".
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I recorded the episode and happened to land on the joke as I was going back through hoping to find lines that I might have missed. The nerd wanted to marry Mila and Walden said that was never going to happen. It wasn't that anything about Mila was bad. It was that the guy is a nerd.
 
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