Two and a Half Men (seasons 9-12)

Two and a Half Men is an American television sitcom that originally aired on CBS for twelve seasons from September 22, 2003, to February 19, 2015. The series was about a hedonistic jingle writer, Charlie Harper, his uptight brother, Alan, and Alan's son, Jake. After Alan divorces, he and Jake move into Charlie's beachfront Malibu house and complicate Charlie's freewheeling life.

While the first eight seasons of Two and a Half Men were well-received, the same can't be said for the seasons made after the departure of star Charlie Sheen. This page will focus on the seasons with his replacement, Ashton Kutcher (seasons 9 to 12).

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Due to the departure of star Charlie Sheen after his infamous public meltdown, he was replaced by Ashton Kutcher. Unfortunately, his character, Walden Schmidt, isn't a good character, as he's literally the same as Alan, only rich and much more of a man-child, and not as funny.
 * 2) *To make things worse, Angus T. Jones left the series in Season 10, due to comments he made in an interview in November 2012 to a Christian website, attacking the show as "filth" that contradicts his moral values and said he was sick of being a part of it. His character Jake Harper did not return until the series finale "Of Course He's Dead" in Season 12, as a guest appearance. He was replaced by Jenny, Charlie Harper's illegitimate and lesbian daughter in Season 11, who isn't as good of a character as Jake, was mostly involved in plotlines concerning Walden, and was reduced to a recurring character in Season 12.
 * 3) **Speaking of which, Jake's first replacement Jenny Harper feels nothing more like a pathetic attempt at ripping off Charlie Harper, except gender-swapped and even more of a promiscuous pervert and with none of the charm and likability Charlie had.
 * 4) *The other replacement for Jake, Louis, the child whom Walden and Alan foster and later is adopted by Walden in Season 12, wasn't a great replacement to Jake either, looking more a bland imitation of Jake Harper.
 * 5) Season 12's plot of Alan and Walden pretending to be gay to fool the system to adopt Louis is terrible, since they still date women and they refuse to be intimate with each other. Because of this, they decided to divorce and stay with Lyndsey and Ms. McMartin instead.
 * 6) *On top of that, Alan and Walden as a gay couple is poorly mismatched, feels very forced and lacked chemistry.
 * 7) Misleading title in later seasons: Despite the show's title stating Two and a Half Men, as mentioned before in BQ #1, after Jake left the series in Season 11, the series began jumping the shark with the first new "Half Man" of the show in Jake's place isn't even male, since the new "Half Man" in Season 11 is a 25-year-old young woman named Jenny Harper, and in episodes 1, 4 and 5 of Season 12 there is no "Half Man" among the main cast due to Jenny Harper's absence in those episodes. Thankfully this has been fixed as of episode 6 of Season 12 with Louis introduced as the new "Half Man" of the main cast.
 * 8) The episode titled "Frodo's Headshots" was absolutely nothing but an Alan torture episode. The episode was pretty unfunny and bland.
 * 9) None of the side characters are very interesting.
 * 10) Walden's girlfriend, Zoey Hyde-Tottingham-Pierce is an extremely disrespectful and detestable love interest and serve no purpose to the show whatsoever. In fact, she has been removed from the show as of Season 11 (though she did returned only in the series finale "Of Course He's Dead").
 * 11) Severe flanderizations of the characters:
 * 12) *Alan has been flanderized from a lovable loser who cared about the people around him to a complete sociopath who is even more of a manchild than ever, to the point that his poverty and cheapskate qualities are constant joke fodder. In addition, he is now a much bigger freeloader than he was back when Charlie owned the Malibu beach house, and his general clumsiness, bad luck, social ineptitude, poor judgment and stupidity are also become exaggerated as well.
 * 13) *Jake is now even dumber as well.
 * 14) *Rose went from an obsessed stalker in the first eight seasons into a creepy, vengeful and manipulative psychopath with no redeeming qualities whatsoever, with the series finale "Of Course He's Dead" depicting her at her absolute worst when it is revealed that she actually kept Charlie hostage in her dungeon throughout the entire events of these seasons.
 * 15) The writing has also taken a severe dip in quality, with many character interactions feeling forced.
 * 16) Awful humor compared to the previous seasons.
 * 17) Some of the plots are left unresolved or are completely disregarded, like Walden's friend went on to date Walden's ex-wife, Bridget.
 * 18) Season 10 saw a retool of the show, with humor more in-line with the nerd-culture humor of The Big Bang Theory, which left it as an inferior clone of that show, which coincidentally both shows were created by the same person, Chuck Lorre.
 * 19) The finale, "Of Course He's Dead", is not a good way to end the series, due to the anti-climax and the ending.
 * 20) *Notably, in the writers' desperate attempt of trying to bring back Charlie Harper into the series despite the firing of his portrayer Charlie Sheen, that episode heavily contradicts and retcons the entire scene of Charlie Harper's death as previously established earlier in this era; prior to that episode it's been heavily established that Charlie Harper is already dead, but in that episode it is later revealed that Charlie didn't die but was kept hostage in Rose's dungeon throughout the entire events of these seasons to the point that it drove him to a murderous rage of seeking revenge against Alan and Walden, hence derailing Charlie's character as a whole and making Rose even more unlikable than usual.
 * 21) The flashback sequence from the series finale "Of Course He's Dead" which uses incredibly ugly CGI animation.

Good Qualities

 * 1) Both Miley Cyrus and Emily Osment from mh:besttvshows:Hannah Montana guess starred.
 * 2) The theme song's still memorable and catchy (although Seasons 11 and 12 used the short version due to Angus T. Jones' departure in Season 10).
 * 3) Some episodes are still good.
 * 4) Great acting.
 * 5) Seasons 10-12 are slight improvements over Season 9, as the toilet humor was at least toned down, and Walden became a better character after that season.
 * 6) Porky Pig's cameo in the series finale "Of Course He's Dead" was funny, despite the awful-quality CGI animation used.
 * 7) the theme song it had with Mom was pretty hilarious.

Trivia

 * Conchata Ferrel, who played Berta, died on October 10, 2020 due to a Cardiac arrest. She is the first out of the original cast to die.
 * Season 11 is the first season Berta appeared in every single episode.

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