A couple of weeks ago Ashton Kutcher took over as the lead on the hit CBS comedy Two
and a Half Men and it was the highest rated episode in the show’s history. The speculation on how Charlie Sheen’s character would be written off the show bounced around for months with the winning scenario being the death of Charlie Harper.
The funeral was populated by past conquests including Tricia Helfer and Jeri Ryan whose characters all had reasons to hate the late Charlie Harper. Though several of the women wanted to see the body the service was closed coffin, it would seem Charlie met his end after “falling” in front of a moving train. Charlie’s demise came after Rose caught him with another woman, twice.
Ashton Kutcher’s character, Walden Schmidt shows up soaked at Charlie’s beach house after a failed suicide attempt. Alan offers to dry his clothes and take him to help him forget his troubles. In the first 5 minute of meeting the character we find out he is rich, good looking, smart and has an elephant trunk sized penis. The pair go out and wind up coming home with two women, both of which go upstairs with Kutcher leaving Cryer’s character in a familiar spot, alone.
The next morning Kutcher walks out stark naked which impresses Berta who also makes reference to the size of his penis. By the end of the episode Kutcher decides that he is going to purchase Charlie’s beach house since it is for sale. The episode ends with “to be continued.”
The “to be continued” ending was meant to bring us back for another week and people did return, including me. Through the course of that episode and the following one the storyline progressed getting everything back to where it belonged. Berta (Conchata Ferrell) is still the housekeeper, only now she lives in Alan’s old room. Alan is back as is Jake only now they are living in the same room. The only thing missing is Rose (Melanie Lynskey) popping up over the railing and the occasional visit from Evelyn (Holland Taylor) to round out the old cast.
That is a recap of the season premiere but what people really want to know is how Ashton Kutcher measures up to Charlie Sheen. Personally I thought the season premiere fell a bit flat and after 3 episodes I think that that show has lost its shine. Charlie Sheen’s character of Charlie Harper was an immature, self-obsessed hedonist and we loved him for it. He may have been a “Peter Pan” but he had a level of cool. Sure he occasionally woke up in a puddle of his own vomit but that made him endearing to us. The character that Ashton Kutcher plays, Walden Schmidt is basically a retread of Kelso from That 70’s Show only not as charming.
The producers and the writers of the show have gone through great lengths to stroke the ego of Kutcher and lead the audience into liking the character. The first episode held so many references to how good looking, rich, smart and well-endowed Walden Schmidt was I half expected Chuck Lorre to come out and pleasure Kutcher on screen. Sheen’s character made reference to his “package” and sexual prowess constantly but it was him doing it not everyone in the room fawning over him. He didn’t need his ego stroked, he stroked it himself.
The character of Walden is a man-child that needs to be smacked. In the most recent episode he took his soon to be ex-wife to a restaurant and engaged in a food fight with a kid. Not that Two and a Half Men was ever highbrow humor but this wasn’t even funny. Walden is portrayed as a computer whiz and it is believable that someone that level of intelligence lacks social skills and maybe a bit behind in maturity; but I would rather hang out with Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) from the Big Bang Theory for a week than spend a day with Walden. I am sure that Kutcher is nothing like the Kelso character and maybe Lorre should have given Walden a little more depth instead of making him a parody of Charlie.
I am not saying these things because I am in Camp Sheen. I admit as I write this I am sitting here in my bowling shirt, khaki shorts and brown loafers but I am still being impartial. I used to look forward to Monday nights at 9pm because the cast gelled. Charlie was the guy you wanted to be because he lived the life of Riley and Alan was the guy most of us were so we could relate. Alan has just become more manipulative and unlikeable and Walden is, despite his attributes, not someone you want to be. The funniest thing about the show at this point is that Jake (Angus T. Jones) is the smartest, most likeable character on the show.
I cannot say that this is the end of Two and a Half Men but I feel that at most it has another season. Kutcher has pull with the youth demographic as well with the female demo so there will be new viewers tuning in but I am sure that some fans will be tuning out. Berta summed it up best in last week’s episode when she looked to the heavens and said, “You took the wrong brother!” No offense to John Cryer but I agree. Then again there is always House on Fox.
