Two and a Half Men plus One?

A glance at Episode One of the new series

By Gary Kean

So I finally got around to watching the first episode of the new series of Two and a Half Men.  Incase you have been living under a rock for the last year it no longer includes Charlie Sheen who’s character has been killed off.  This was the debut episode for his replacement Ashton Kutcher.

The first 15 minutes or so is focused mainly on the rest of the cast wondering what will happen next and from a storyline point of view I was wondering the exact same thing.  I was a huge fan of Charlie in the show and his character was my main reason for watching, for a moment I actually thought, what the hell do I care what these guys do next??   It’s really only when you think about the other characters in the show you realise Charlie really was the centrepiece, his interactions with every cast member were the main focus point of nearly every episode of the show.  Sure there are some funny exchanges involving Alan (Jon Cryer) and other cast members but nowhere near the level of Sheen.

When Kutcher finally appeared I wondered what sort of character he would be, is he another womaniser?  Is he an eccentric billionaire?  Is he a down to earth businessman?  In actual fact it is too early to tell, his character Walden Schmidt is an Internet billionaire who has just been dumped by the love of his life and tried to drown himself in front of the beach house.  On first appearance you could be forgiven he is a fully grown version of Jake (Angus T Jones), he seems to be a typical Kutcher character crossed between That 70’s Show and Dude, Where’s My Car?  It’s really hard to tell how they are going to get the story going enough to keep you interested for a full season.  His only main interaction so far has been with Alan and the two seem to have decent chemistry, I have no doubt in future episodes there will be some great conversations between Walden and Jake but beyond that I don’t see anything lasting.

 One possible storyline might be to bring Rose (Melanie Lynskey) back to have a similar stalker angle to what she had with Charlie but who knows where they will go with it.  On a positive note I didn’t hate it at all, I did actually quite enjoy the episode.  The only issue for me is that you KNOW something is missing and it may just take a while to adapt.  In some shows such as Charmed they managed to build on replacement characters (Rose McGowan coming in to replace Shannon Doherty) and go on for many successful seasons.  On the other hand I dare say Two and a Half Men is much bigger than Charmed so the only comparison I can draw is Friends.  If they had replaced ANY of the Friends main cast with another actor or actress after 8 seasons how much further could they have gone?

All in all so far, enjoyable but nowhere near the standard of previous material.  I will give it two season’s tops before it is cancelled.  I hope I am wrong and they turn it around but they have a lot of work to do.  The next episode in the UK will be on Monday 3rd October on Comedy Central.