TV Review: ANGER MANAGEMENT - Charlie Goes To Therapy 1.1

“You can’t fire me, I quit! You want to replace me with some other guy, go ahead. It won’t be the same. You think I’m loosing, I’m not, I’m….. Anyway you get the idea” – Charlie Sheen (Anger Management)

Charile Sheen made his long awaited return to TV earlier this week with his brand new sitcom Anger Management, a spin off from the 2003 movie starring Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson which I’ve never seen. Cliché? Slightly, when you consider the show opened with Charlie Goodson as Sheen is known in this show staring down the camera and delivering the above quote, although this was a clear jab at Two and a Half Men show runner Chuck Lorre, it was still pretty funny, more so when the camera angle expanded and you see it’s the introduction to just who Charile Goodson is. In Anger Management Hollywood bad boy Sheen plays a former professional Baseball star who suffers a melt down, breaking his own knee and ending his career Charlie decides he has anger issues, gets some help and finds the inspiration to re-train as an anger management therapist himself.

Anger Management went out on FX in the US and as predicted it would seem that maybe Charlie Sheen is “winning” after all, as the network enjoyed record ratings for a TV series debut, 5.7 million people tuned in to see what Sheen had left to offer following his very public exit from TV’s biggest sitcom. On watching it I can’t help but think that so many people tuned in out of curiosity, as let’s face it the show was not that great and in most ways completely mirrored CBS’s Two and a Half Men. Charlie has a nice house (not a beach one in Malibu mind you), he likes to drink, he sleeps with women, won’t commit and has a dry sense of humour. That pretty much sounds like his previous job to me. The only difference really is that the shoe is on the other foot for some of the scenarios. Here, the ex-wife is Charlie’s, the kid is Charlie’s, there’s no brother attached but it would seem that his next door neighbour is going to fill that void.

Was it funny? Well, during the “pilot” named “Charlie Goes to Therapy” Anger Management had its moments, thanks largely to Sheen, lets face it we know he’s a funny guy and the show again draws comparisons to Two and a Half Men here as most of the jokes can be seen coming from a mile off, some are a hit others completely miss. What really irritates me, and puts me off shows like this is the fake laughing they feel necessary to put over every single attempt at a joke, this is something that’s done with American sitcoms all the time and I have to be honest if it wasn’t there then maybe you would laugh because you would actually here the punch line to a joke, just sayin.

I only got as far as this first episode, honestly, I would have watched the second but it was getting pretty late and I had to be up early so I settled for my bed and a re-run, well DVD of Mrs Brown Boys (look it up, very funny). I’ll maybe get round to the second episode in the next couple of night’s if I feel like it, but from “Charlie Goes to Therapy” I don’t feel all that drawn to come back and watch the second episode. Away from all of its obvious comparisons Anger Management felt a little like Mike & Molly to me, I think its funnier mind you but what I mean by the comparison is the backing cast, non of them really got my interest, they weren’t funny and I feel like it was just filler, then again this is only the first episode so maybe come the next few weeks they may become a little thinner on the ground, who knows?

So to sum it up, Anger Management didn’t blow me away. Charlie Sheen is back to what he does best but I don’t see this having the same impact as his previous role. It’s essentially throw away TV just like that previous role, you don’t have to watch every episode and it could do you well as a little light hearted entertainment when you want to fill in twenty minutes of your time. I’ll continue to watch the next but I’m not entirely sure I could hack this every week.

Random Thought

Why do they always call Charlie Sheen’s character Charlie? Is it because the network are afraid that real life Charlie may do to much white stuff and forget that his character has a different name than that of his own? #Winning