Two and a Half Men is an American television sitcom that premiered on CBS on September 22, 2003. Starring Charlie Sheen, Jon Cryer, and Angus T. Jones, the show was originally about a hedonistic jingle writer, Charlie Harper; his uptight brother, Alan; and Alan's growing son, Jake. Charlie's free-wheeling life is complicated when his brother gets divorced and moves, along with his son, into Charlie's beach-front Malibu house. The series' premise was revamped in the ninth season, focusing on Alan and Jake moving on with their lives after the death of Charlie with help from their new roommate, Walden Schmidt (Ashton Kutcher), who is also dealing with his own troubles following a bad divorce. The three eventually bond and help each other grow and overcome their losses.
In 2010, CBS and Warner Bros. Television reached a multi-year broadcast agreement for the series, renewing it through at least the 2011–12 season.[1][2] However, CBS and Warner Bros. decided to end production for the rest of the eighth season due to Sheen entering drug rehabilitation and making "disparaging comments" about the show's creator and executive producer, Chuck Lorre.[3] Sheen was officially fired from the show on March 7, 2011.[4] The ninth season premiere, "Nice to Meet You, Walden Schmidt", killed off Sheen's character and introduced Ashton Kutcher as Walden Schmidt, his replacement.[5]
In 2011, a news article in The New York Times called it "the biggest hit comedy of the past decade."[6] The show has ranked among the Top 25 programs every season since it first aired. There have been nine seasons of the show thus far.
Plot
The series revolves around the life of Charlie Harper, his brother Alan, and Alan's son, Jake. Charlie is a bachelor who makes his money writing jingles for a living and leads a hedonistic lifestyle. When Alan's wife Judith decides to divorce him, Alan moves into Charlie's beach house, with ten-year-old Jake periodically coming to stay with his father and Charlie. Charlie's house is cleaned by Berta, a sharp-tongued woman who initially resists the change to the household but comes to grudgingly accept it.The first eight seasons of the series finds Charlie in primarily sexual relationships with many women until, in season 6, he becomes engaged to Chelsea. However, the relationship does not last and Charlie eventually flies to Paris at the end of season 8 in pursuit of Rose, who was introduced as his stalker in the pilot episode. At the beginning of season 9, it is revealed that Charlie died when he "fell" in front of a train in Paris after cheating on Rose; it is strongly hinted that Rose was responsible.
Alan's experiences are somewhat different from Charlie's. Throughout the series he continues to deal with the results of his divorce from Judith, his son growing up, and generally he has little success with women. Even his marriage to Kandi at the end of season 3 was short-lived. In season 4, Alan is back at the beach house paying alimony to two women out of his meager earnings from his job as a chiropractor. In season 7, he begins a relationship with Lyndsey McElroy, the mother of one of Jake's friends. Their relationship is temporarily suspended when Alan accidentally burns down her house, but the relationship eventually resumes.
At the beginning of season 9, the beach house is sold after Charlie's death to Walden Schmidt, an Internet billionaire in the process of being divorced by his wife Bridget. Although Alan leaves to live with his mother Evelyn after the house is sold, he is invited back to live in the beach house by Walden as he needs a friend to help guide him in the world.
Charlie Sheen's firing and replacement
Following a February 2010 announcement that Charlie Sheen was entering drug rehabilitation, filming of the show was put on hiatus,[7] but resumed the following month.[8] On April 1, 2010, People.com reported that after seven seasons, Sheen announced he was considering leaving the show.[9] According to one source, Sheen quit the show after filming the final episode of season 7, purportedly due to his rejection of CBS's offer of $1 million per episode as too low.[10] Sheen eventually stated that he would be back for two more seasons.[11] On May 18, 2010, the New Zealand website stuff.co.nz reported that a press release issued by Sheen's publicist confirmed that Sheen had signed a new contract for a further two years at $1.78 million per episode. "To put a fitting end on the two and one-half months of whirlwind speculation, I'm looking forward to returning to my CBS home on Monday nights," Sheen was quoted as saying.[12]On January 28, 2011, Sheen entered a rehabilitation center voluntarily for the third time in 12 months. According to Warner Bros. Television and CBS, the show was put on hiatus for an unknown amount of time.[13] The following month, after Sheen's verbal attacks against Chuck Lorre during a radio interview with Alex Jones and an online interview with TMZ.com, CBS announced that Two and a Half Men would cease production for the rest of its eighth season,[14] affecting an estimated 200 employees,[15] and causing Warner Bros., Lorre, Sheen, and other profit participants not to receive about $10 million from the lost eight remaining episodes.[16] Afterwards, Sheen was interviewed on ABC's 20/20, NBC's Today, and CNN's Piers Morgan Tonight, continuing to make hostile comments about Lorre, as well as CBS.[17] On March 7, CBS and Warner Bros. Television jointly announced that Sheen had been fired from Two and a Half Men, citing "moral turpitude" as a main cause of separation.[5] No decision about the future of the show was announced at that time.
Cast members Marin Hinkle and Holland Taylor expressed sadness at Sheen's departure and personal problems.[18] Jon Cryer did not publicly comment on the matter and in response, Sheen called him "a turncoat, a traitor, [and] a troll" in an E! Online interview,[19] although he later issued a "half-apology" to Cryer for the remarks.[20] Sheen sued Lorre and Warner Bros. Television for $100 million, claiming that he had filed the lawsuit on behalf of himself and Two and a Half Men's cast and crew; however, only Sheen was named as a plaintiff in court documents.[21]
In April 2011, Sheen mentioned during a radio interview after his tour's stop in Boston that he and CBS were talking about a possible return to the show.[22] Regardless, Lorre announced that same month that he had developed an idea for a Two and a Half Men reboot that will exclude Sheen and have Cryer in a key role alongside a new character.[23]
On May 13, CBS announced that Ashton Kutcher would join the cast. Kutcher was quoted as saying, "I can't replace Charlie Sheen but I'm going to work my ass off to entertain the hell out of people!"[24]
On August 2, it was reported that the season nine premiere would begin with Sheen's character having been killed off and his ex-girlfriends attending his funeral. Afterwards, Charlie's Malibu home would be put up for sale and interested buyers would include celebrities from Lorre's other sitcoms, and John Stamos as well as Kutcher's character, Walden Schmidt, "an Internet billionaire with a broken heart." Critics compared this situation to what happened in 1987 to Valerie Harper, who was also fired from a sitcom, Valerie (later titled "Valerie's Family: The Hogans" and then "The Hogan Family"), also had her character killed off-screen, and was also replaced by someone else, Sandy Duncan, the following season.[25][26][27][28] Rather than grieving over the death of his character, Sheen said he would watch his "fake funeral attended by [his] fake ex-girlfriends, from [his] very, very real movie theater, with [his] very real hotties in tow.
