Now when you usually mention Two and a Half Men, it is met with lots of eye rolling and discussion about the pros and cons of cocaine.  Nevertheless, Two and a Half Men is almost inescapable if you don’t have cable and can’t be bothered having a life.  It tells the simple tale of a doctor; Alan (Jon Cryer), whose marriage breaks down and is forced to take his son Jake (Angus T. Jones – so close to Angus T-Bone) to live with his brother Charlie (Charlie Sheen - his character is named after him to avoid confusion). 

Now I hear what you’re saying; a doctor who can’t afford his own place? Surely he’ll only stay there for a couple of weeks until he can move into a penthouse.  Incorrect. In fact, he has been living there for seven years now. What sort of doctor can’t move out of his brother’s place after seven years?! And he’s not even the one with the crack addiction!

Charlie is a philandering man-whore who apparently writes jingles when he’s not getting wasted or spreading venereal disease to the female population.  His brother Alan is his exact opposite, being an anally retentive chiropractor who works a lot and doesn’t get as much tail as his older brother.  Then there is Jake, the ‘fat kid’ who is as dumb as he is large.  Obviously it is Jake who makes up the ‘half’ in the title, not some part corpse that acts as a Weekend at Bernie’s comic relief (although there is a show that I would watch). And so we watch as pretty much the same thing happens in every episode: where Charlie has lots of sex/alcohol/both, Alan has some issue and the fat kid says some dumb stuff.  All in all, it’s very entertaining and I take my hat of to the writers for being able to produce such a powerhouse show that can essentially do the same thing for 7 seasons and hence see the shows ‘child’ actor make more money than Miley Cirus. It’s true! And here I was thinking she was the most overpaid, talent-less spawn of Satan…but no, T. Bone’s got this one. Charlie Sheen on the other hand is making more money than you can snort, and Jon Cryer is… well I’m not really sure what he’s doing but I’d like to think he’s still trying to pick up Molly Ringwald. 

The point I’m trying to make is that this show is successful and that is nothing to scoff at.  While you might not like the show at all because of it’s completely sexist content and it’s portrayal of women as sexual objects, or because of it’s portrayal of men as morons since all the male characters in the show are as inept and unlikeable as Tony Abbot in speedos, you can’t say that it’s crap. A crap show is something that Mick Molloy makes and only runs for a month, but for such a monster as Two and a Half Men to still be running and getting more and more popular shows that it is more than crap, it is lowest common denominator crap, which is exactly why you should respect it or be destroyed by it.  Nothing will ever stop this juggernaut of a show unless one of the main characters perhaps has to go to rehab for cocaine addiction.

Two and a Half Men screens on Channel 9 most hours of the day.

Ryland Summers