Rejoice, America! Our long national nightmare of Charlie
Sheen not being grossly overpaid to star in a mediocre sitcom is almost over. Sheen has inked a deal with Lionsgate to star
in a sitcom adaptation of the film Anger Management.
The deal gives Sheen a
stake of ownership in the show, ensuring for the foreseeable future that he will still have plenty of
money to buy boats he can fill with malnourished porn stars. Excited about the new show? Don't be. We have pored over Sheen's
deal and have pinpointed why it will likely suck.
Source Material
Nicholson vehicle Anger Management, a film we always confuse with Analyze This.
Though an OK movie, was it really something you found yourself saying, "Wow, I
wish I could spend time with these characters for years to come"? If they
were dead-set on adapting a Jack Nicholson movie into a TV series for Sheen, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest would have been a
far more interesting choice.
Quantity of Episodes
model set by classic sitcoms such as Tyler Perry's House of Payne and asking
for a network to commit to an initial order of ten episodes followed by 90 more once the show reaches a certain margin in the ratings. One hundred
episodes virtually guarantees the show will get picked up for syndication, but
it also guarantees that a whole lot of those episodes will be godawful. Expect
a show that, much like Fascist Italy, cares more about the trains running on
time than quality.
Explicitness
Because Sheen and his producers are clearly aiming to sell the
show into syndication as quickly as possible, the sitcom will likely have to be
sanitized for a 7 p.m. audience. Which means no references to drug-induced
mania or dating porn stars or really any of the things that people found
interesting about Sheen in the first place.
Sure, there will be plenty
of innuendo that will fly over the heads of younger viewers à la Two and a Half
Men, but could you imagine how much more interesting, if not better, the show
could be if developed for FX, AMC, or HBO?
Catch Phrases Galore
Remember "winning!" and "tiger blood" and all the goofystuff that came out of Sheen's drug-addled mouth when he first went off the
rails? And how fun it was to quote it to your friends or on Twitter until you
started seeing "winning!" on T-shirts and tiger blood cocktails at bars?
Expect these catch phrases and many others to be rammed down your throat every
episode of Anger Management. Maybe Sheen will say, "I put the psycho in
psychotherapy!" at the end of every show before the credits.
Pure Sheen
Currently there is no network attached to air Anger
Management, or costars, or even a show runner and writing team. The main
creative force behind the show is just Charlie Sheen. Having
Charlie Sheen as your main creative source might be fun if he were still giving chain-smoking interviews to TMZ and 20/20, but he's not.
Charlie Sheen is
now a brand where a sober dude tries to convince you he's wild and unhinged.
And his individual endeavors thus far, such as his failed web series or failed
comedy tour, have been abysmal. Just how bad is Sheen at making creative decisions? He has agreed to host this year's Gathering
of the Juggalos. Unless Aaron Sorkin comes along to make the show good, or even
just interesting, we'll be saving room on our DVR for Ashton Kutcher's debut on
Two and a Half Men (no, we won't).
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