One of the great joys of something you love exploding into the mainstream of culture is that you can share your love with your friends, family, co-workers, and so on. The three years when I watched Arrested Development were simultaneously triumphant and solitary. The show is, of course, the greatest television comedy ever (and I will cage-fight anyone who disagrees with me! Or not.), but it is also one of the quintessential little-watched broadcast programs in television history. So few people watched it even on my college campus that when I walked around with a T-shirt reading "Annyong, Hermano!", I'd often get 99 quizzical looks for the 1 appreciative chuckle.
On the flip side, once I began working at my full-time job, just over two and a half years ago, I found that plenty of my co-workers loved the show and mourned its demise. I'm glad to be able to drop references to Jessica Walter's creepy wink to these folks, but I wish I'd known them when the show was on. So when a movie like Black Swan inexplicably becomes popular enough to merit a sketch on Saturday Night Live, it's comforting to know that I and my wife aren't alone in loving the movie, or at least knowing it well enough to snicker at the parody of Vincent Cassel's character (the only funny aspect of the sketch, but still funny). It's comforting to know that everyone who considers themselves a human watched and loved Toy Story 3. But then there are the songs, movies, books, and TV shows that hit big that I just don't get.
I am an avid TV watcher, but as I age and my tastes mature, I find that there are a lot of networks that I just don't watch. Obviously, this is the same for anyone with a TV; there are so many channels with so much programming that it's impossible to watch everything and have a life. However, there are networks I don't watch just because my apathy only extends so far. So, as the prime example, I don't watch CBS shows. Most of them are, you know, fine. But that's it. CBS has mostly steered away from making serialized TV, and the formula continues to work. I don't blame them for staying consistent; I'm just not interested in watching a procedural every week where I know exactly what will happen every second of every episode. Still, CBS has huge hits; just this past week, the long-running procedural NCIS garnered 22 million viewers, a series-high number. There is one hit, though, that I'm baffled by as time goes on. Only the truly crafty among you will have figured out which it is.
Oh, wait, it's in the title. Yes, I don't get the allure of Two and a Half Men. I watched the pilot episode of the series, having done a quickie review for it when I was a sophomore in college for the student newspaper's website. I remember thinking that it was kind of funny, and Charlie Sheen was somewhat charming as a slightly fictionalized version of his tabloid self. I had the same feelings about it that I do for most CBS pilots: I will totally watch another episode! I will watch another episode. I may watch another episode. I--oh, I missed the episode. Oh well. Back then, I got why people would watch it, but as 2010, in particular, went forward and Sheen continued to either spiral out of control or do his very best at trying to quit his job via self-immolation, I had to wonder: who is watching this show? The ratings have always been right around the same level of solidity; CBS thought highly enough of the show to renew it through the end of the 2011-12 season, and if the ratings are the same, who knows? Maybe they'll renew it for even longer.
But as I was reading the comments from CBS honcho Nina Tassler at the January edition of the Television Critics Association (TCA) tour where she basically said that on a personal level, Sheen's a problem, but professionally, there are no complaints, I thought about the people I knew and wondered if any of them avidly watched the show. It's one thing to, on a slow Monday night, tune in and have a laugh. The show's numbers are too consistent, though. Someone--rather, someone times 15 million or so--is watching this show every week, glued to their sets as much as I would be to Lost. So I ask this to anyone reading. Do you watch Two and a Half Men? Do you know someone who does? Why? What's more, after what hideous embarrassments he's been through, why enable Charlie Sheen's personal troubles (which is genuinely what I think anyone watching the show, and the CBS execs do)? I want to know why someone would watch this show--actually watch it, not just leave it on because of the show before. I await your responses.
I just happened on this post after the Sheen thing blew up. I've never been a huge fan of the show, mostly pointing out that it's by no means bad (it used to have a fairly good reputation, even getting Emmy nominations for Best Comedy, but it sank after ACCORDING TO JIM was no longer around to be a critical whipping-boy). I do know people who watch it all the time. I remember at a party shortly after MAD MEN started, talking to a couple of women who worked in the industry as technicians; they found MAD MEN a bit dull but loved TWO AND A HALF MEN.
ReplyDeleteI think one thing that accounts for its success is simple luck. It was lucky enough to turn up at a time when most other sitcoms were either shows like ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT, which could never be popular, or really terrible traditional sitcoms. A successful traditional sitcom has a strangely immersive effect: people can and do watch the episodes over and over again, repeat the catchphrases along with the characters, make it a point to watch them in syndication. But there just weren't many shows like that between 2003 and now, and MEN was probably the best of a poor crop.
The other thing is that it's a show that sort of hits a sweet spot in appealing to men and women. Guys obviously like it because of the fantasy of living a consequence-free life like Charlie; like Jerry Seinfeld, his troubles are minor, his girlfriends are ridiculously beautiful, and he's not punished as strongly as his pathetic buddy. (The Charlie/Alan dynamic is a bit like Jerry/George.) And for women, it doesn't have the thing where the woman is just unfunny and sensible; the women are as crazy as the men.
And I think it helps that it kind of is escapism rooted in real issues -- in this case, the very real fear of being alone and (in Jon Cryer's case) penniless. This kind of show feels a bit more real to viewers than a cartoon like "Arrested Development," but more escapist than a really dark comedy. So again, the sweet spot.