| Premiering
on Monday nights at 9:30pm in the fall of
2003, CBS' sitcom Two and a Half Men stars Charlie Sheen
(most recently of Spin City) as 35-year-old Charlie, a wealthy,
carefree jingle-writer who lives on the beach in Malibu. His life
is turned upside down when his brother Alan (played by Jon Cryer of
Pretty and Pink) separates from his wife and moves in with
Charlie, bringing his brainy 10-year-old son Jake (Angus T. Jones)
along with him.
The
event that sets this all in motion? Alan's estranged wife Judith
finally starts to deal with her attraction to women. Although Judith
is not exactly marching in the gay pride parade yet, she's definitely
on her way, and her relationship with Alan serves as a subplot to
the central one which revolves around the relationship between to
the two brothers and their attempt to co-parent Jake.
In
a brilliant casting move, Judith is played by Marin Hinkle,
who played Sela Ward's quirky sister Judy in the lesbian-friendly
ABC drama Once and Again.
Hinkle has also been in movies like Frequency and I
am Sam, as well as several plays and a short stint on the NBC
daytime drama Another World.
Holland
Taylor also stars as Alan and Charlie's controlling mother,
Evelyn.
A
high-profile cast (particularly Sheen and Taylor),
and the fact that the pilot beat out several others for a place
on CBS' fall schedule, bodes well for its success, and early feedback
on the pilot has been promising. With the hit show Everybody
Loves Raymond as a lead-in, CBS appears to be trying to give
it a fighting chance. Some competition will come from competing
networks, however, as the sitcom goes up against Fox's new drama
Skin, NBC's new drama Las Vegas, Everwood
on the WB, and Monday Night Football on ABC, all of which
air between 9pm and 10pm and Monday nights.
But
even if the sitcom does well, it remains to be seen whether Judith
gets to be a full-fleshed character with a storyline beyond the
"my wife is a lesbian" jokes straight men appear to be
so fond of, or whether her storyline shrinks to being almost non-existent,
as it did for another lesbian ex-wife on a sitcom called Friends
shortly after that show debuted almost ten years ago.
Since
this is a sitcom revolving around two
straight men, Judith probably never will become more than a prop
to their storyline. But even if she only lasts a few episodes, Two
and a Half Men will be worth watching just to see Hinkle again;
her presence on the small screen has been missed since Once
and Again was canceled.
And
since Judith is one of the only new lesbian characters so far on
next season's network primetime TV schedule and ER's
Kerry Weaver is the only returning one, we also don't have many
other options.
2005
Update: Judith's sexuality was questioned a few times in
the first season, but the issue of her possibly being lesbian or
bisexual was dropped by the second season. The sitcom has now become
one of the highest-rated shows on CBS. |
