America. Bless you for the insanely good things you’ve given the world. Muscle cars, hamburger joints, rock ‘n’ roll and television will always be your crowning glory and us Limeys will forever be in your debt.
However, your taste in television shows is awful. From a country (nay, virtual continent) that gave us Taxi, The Simpsons, M*A*S*H, Roots, Ren & Stimpy, The Muppet Show and more, what in Christ’s name are you doing frittering away your time with dross like Two And A Half Men?
Seriously. What’s with liking Two And A Half Men so much that it breaks network records? Eh? And don’t think we haven’t noticed how much you enjoy the unswerving dreck of The Big Bang Theory.
For some inexplicable reason, 28.74 million Americans tuned in to watch last night’s season premiere of Two And A Half Men.
Of course, there was a fair amount of curiosity surrounding the show because Charlie Sheen’s character, Charlie Harper, was killed off, replaced by a soaking wet Ashton Kutcher. Nearly 29 million people actively stopped doing something to settle down with one of the worst TV shows ever aired.
The AV Club report that, aside from a few post-Super Bowl specials and couple of event programmes, last night’s …Men was one of highest rated scripted shows, ever. Ever, ever, ever. By the close of the show, audience figures grew to 30 million.
That’s lazy laughs from vaguely dirty jokes and a cast that is as dead behind the eyes as the Sheen which exited the show in such spectacular fashion.
Two And A Half Men is the kinda show that feels like a nursing home for misogynistic comedy, where we see three men resenting each other, filmed before a live laugh-track. Of course, some people love shows like this. They’re so insultingly one-dimensional and old-fashioned that they slip on like a comfortable pair of old socks.
But these rat-a-tat comedies keep gurgling out of America. Look at the irksome How I Met Your Mother fercryinoutloud! The aforementioned Big Bang… which has a running joke of Look How The Indian Character Talks Funny.
In Blighty, we air these shows in the mornings or tucked away on bit-part channels like E4. That’s the home for this dull-ass gag attacks. That’s not to say we’ve not been infected by this lowest common denominator comedy. My Family is written by an American style team of writers and, regrettably, The Inbetweeners is also ploughing the line of misogynistic nose-bag that everyone so loved in the ’70s.
All the mentioned shows employ a tactic of throwing as much as possible at a viewer and seeing what sticks. Effectively, it’s like standing before a muck spreader and waiting to be hit by a diamond.
Alas, with a huge chunk of America’s TV population tuning in for the new Two And A Half Men, you can’t but feel like they’ve invited it. The United States gets what it wants and, in this instance, the Ashton Kutcher they deserve.
Follow hecklerspray on Twitter or else we’ll kill you in your sleep or join our Facebook group if anyone is still daft enough to use it or BUY ONE OF OUR STUPID T-SHIRTS OR WE’LL KILL EVERYONE YOU’VE EVER LOVED!
JoeMomma says
I’ll go so far and say Friends and Seinfield were even completely overrated.
Of course I found The IT Crowd on Netflix and found it hysterical.
Jenn says
What a winningly xenophobic, IMDb-message-board-worthy little missive! But you needn’t worry. Everyone watched the season premiere for the wreckage; no one laughed at it. It’s kind of like — oh, what do you call it — ‘Big Brother’.
Is this screed secretly in reaction to Peter Bennett-Jones’ remarks at the annual BAFTA Lecture? “We’re currently failing to make enough TV that really matters”? (http://static.bafta.org/files/2011-tv-lecture-1101.pdf)
But never mind. Across the pond, you pay for television that “really matters”. If you want Emmy-winning storytelling, you’ll subscribe to HBO, AMC, and sometimes Showtime. Or you could buy the discs later, of course. For instance! If you’d like to catch up on the entire ‘Deadwood’ series, you can buy it now for the low, low price of
Nikki says
Yes, so true!!! I’m American and I HATE tv here. I find proxy’s to watch UK TV for entertainment. Friday Night Dinner is the funniest show of the year.
d says
Kutcher sucked, Cryer tried too hard to carry the show and no one wants to see Kutcher naked even if they do hide his icky bits. Now Josh Holloway, that one I want to see naked. Listen up Chuck (what were you thinking) Lorre
trathus says
You know… as much as I hate the show in question, and most of – if not all – of what is piddled out by the Crappy Bowel Syndrome(for those of you across the pond, the CBS network is akin in the popularity and recognition of it’s Old World kin, the BBC) what I happen to distaste more so is being grouped and labeled as such. Although, yes, when the majority of a people are a SELFISH majority – it’d be almost impossible NOT to stereotype the whole lot; but there is a selfless minority, whenever or wherever it may of been or will be….
I mean, just because 30 MILLION Brits tuned into EastEnders to watch Den’s divorce – 15 YEARS AGO, in 1984 – does that make the whole of Britannia a mass of soap opera fanatics…. foaming at the mouth for another dose of their “stories”?
Especially since the UK population was what… appox 57 million circa 1985? So 3/5ths of the nations population tuned is; the contemporary population of the US is approx 300million(and I’m rounding DOWN) so 10% of the states tuned in?
Zachary says
FND, funniest show of the year? I think that’s a bit of a stretch. Does it make me laugh every episode, yes. However The League LITERALLY makes me laugh every 3 seconds (I timed it).
And for the record, the only person I know that likes 2.5 Men is my ex girlfriend. Honestly, that was the main reason I broke up with her. But not all Americans like 2.5 Men. Many of us loathe it.