Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Two Weak Sitcoms

I'd never really watched Two and a Half Men, but like millions of others, checked out the season premiere to see how they dealt with Charlie Sheen's sudden departure.  The show started with a funeral where his character was killed off, and not long after they introduced Aston Kutcher to replace him.  During all this, we get fart jokes, dick jokes, testicle jokes, masturbartion jokes and the like, delivered with the rat-a-tat professionalism we expect on prime time TV.

For the past several years this has been the biggest sitcom on TV.  I'm guessing they may have replaced a character, but they haven't changed the formula.

I stuck around to watch the debut of (the vaguely similarly titled) 2 Broke Girls, featuring Kat Dennings and Beth Behrs in the title roles. Dennings plays a rough, working-class girl who works in a Brooklyn diner.  Behrs comes from money but her Madoff-like dad has lost everything so she's reduced to waitressing.  She doesn't even have a place to live so she moves in with Dennings who has just kicked out her faithless boyfriend.

Like Men, the show is taped in front of an audience.  I'm not sure why one-camera shows have taken over sitcoms--it's not like the format is more popular with viewers.

I thought the women were charming but the jokes weren't quite there.  The show also features Garrett Morris.  I know it's been a long time since his years on SNL, but have people forgotten he should not be allowed to perform comedy live?

2 Comments:

Anonymous Denver Guy said...

I think 2 Broke Girls looked pretty awful, but may appeal to the 2 and a Half Men viewership. I've never watched the Sheen show, so wasn't interested in the recast version. I watched the Broke Girls, and thought it wasn't very funny. But I'm not a target audience.

12:15 PM, September 21, 2011  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

2 1/2 Men was getting more horrible as the shtick was getting more offensive without getting more funny- The MILF boyfriend doesn't help.

On the other hand, I did like the description of Charlie dying under a train as "exploding like a balloon full of meat" as a useful collection of words I'd never heard put together that way before

1:13 PM, September 21, 2011  

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