Monday Night Madness

Yes, yes, I watched the much-hyped premiere of Two and a Half Men. Sure, they did a good job with the stunt casting (*spoiler alert*) but mostly, I thought this Sheen-less Two and a Half Men was, well, kind of dull.

First, bringing back every noteworthy floozy Charlie had ever dated was a little fun...but I couldn't help but think this 'greatest hits' of casting stunt was just stolen from Seinfeld's finale.

Next, bringing in John Stamos was probably the highlight of the 1/2 hour (and really? 1/2 hour? With all the bloated 3-4 hour competition shows out there, Chuck Lorre decided to bang this out in 22 minutes after commercials while the tired How I Met Your Mother premiere was a full hour? I digress...). Anyway, with Stamos at the door, I got excited! Who would show up next???

...And then, Dharma and Greg? Really? While I realize they may hearken back to an old Chuck Lorre era, the 10 year old sitcom was hardly iconic enough to warrant a cameo. Stick to the Uncle Jesse appearances, thank you very much.

Finally, Ashton Kutcher was sort of FINE as the man-child he always plays. He's the anti-Charlie, which was actually the easy way to go, and the path of least resistance. Why not make everyone nuts and pull a Bewitched - just re-cast Charlie and pretend it's all the same? Or bring back Charlie later in a Newhart "What a weird dream" scenario - I'd head in that direction for sweeps, if I ruled the tv world.

Oh well.

Moving on, I won't bore you with the How I Met Your Mother? recap if you haven't seen it. But...no, they didn't meet the Mother, and yes, they are still dragging it out.

The surprise of the night for me was "Two Broke Girls". The laugh-tracky old school feeling sitcom was surprisingly good. Though I couldn't help but wonder if they dreamed up the premise while watching old Facts of Life re-runs late one night (I swear these two girls are modern day Blair and Jo retreads), the writing was sharp in the hands of Sex and the City's Michael Patrick King.

Why is it, by the way, that the wise-cracking tough girl is always brunette, and the richie rich gal is always blonde? The aforementioned Blair and Jo, Cheers' Diane and Rebecca (or for that matter, Diane and Carla)... I'm sure there are more.

Either way, so far, this brunette/blonde combo is having the most fun.

It's How You Play the Game

I guess it takes the Emmy's/the promise of a new TV season/and a little time off to dust off the blog and say "what up" to you, my old Is-It-Just-Me?-TV-ers.

Did you watch the Emmy's last night? I did, and if I was grading it by my elementary school report card standards, I would give it somewhere between a "Satisfactory" and "Needs Improvement" (though even the "Talks too much in class" note that I often received seems fitting here).

But, I like to be Pollyanna Positive when I can, so we'll start out with the good...working our way down to the bad, lest you worry no snark will appear here.

The (Pretty) Good  I must confess, I have never seen Glee.  Well, I mean, I've SEEN it, like clips and such, but no, sorry, I have not jumped on the sing-a-long bandwagon.  However, I thought Jane Lynch kept it all moving along and she had the right amount of wink-wink sarcasm for me.

"I'll have what she's having" award goes to Sofia Vergara.  I could not feel more genetically inferior. And of course they paired her with Rob Lowe, just to remind us all that we are mere mortals. No amount of Spanx/push ups/botox/80 hours on the Stairmaster could ever make us worthy of their company.

The Bad I love a good water cooler moment, really, I do.  So, whatever my feelings for Charlie Sheen's Insanity tour, I was thinking something really fun was going to happen - maybe a dream sequence for 2 and 1/2 Men that revealed all this crazy was imagined? Ashton Kutcher doing a mock Punk'd segment?  Nope, Charlie just came on out and apologized, the audience's nervous light applause underscoring that we were all waiting for the punchline.

Still waiting.

The Ugly I am a huge Modern Family fan, but dear God Julie Bowen, what was with that Ally McBeal look?  Get that gal a sandwich, with a side of extra carbs, stat!