Two and a Half Married Men

At the Television Critics Association convention last week, CBS President Nina Tassler was excited to make an announcement about the storyline for the twelfth and final, 13-episode season of Two and a Half Men.  After surviving a near-death experience, Walden (Ashton Kutcher) becomes determined to raise a child.  But as a single man, his chances for an adoption getting approved seem slim – so he and Alan (Jon Cryer) stage a sham gay marriage.

On Thursday night, at CBS’ star-studded TCA party at West Hollywood’s Pacific Design Center, I caught up with the show’s executive producer Chuck Lorre, and asked about the inspiration for the storyline.  Chuck is always a fun and candid interviewee, and here he gives some honest assessments of where the long-running show has been, and where it hopes to end up.

Must-Hear TV:  What inspired the gay storyline for Two and a Half Men’s final season?

Chuck Lorre:  It was a brilliant idea that was proposed by Jim Patterson and Don Reo, who are the head writers on the show.  I thought it was both very funny and very heartwearming, that these guys would go to such great lengths to take a kid out of the foster system and give him a home.  Yes, there’s some subterfuge involved in doing that, gaming the system.  But the intention is to give a child a home, and it brings the series back full circle, to where it’s about two men trying to teach a young boy how to become a man.

MHTV:  Any chance the concept could go so well, it could become a spinoff?

Lorre:  I have no idea.  I just fell in love with it the minute they said it.  And I hope it breathes life into the show.  This is the end of Two and a Half Men this season.  But whether this concept goes beyond that, I have no idea.

MHTV:  Whose idea to get married?

Lorre:  It’s Walden’s. 

MHTV:  Does Alan think he’s crazy?

Lorre:  Alan doesn’t want to sign a pre-nup.  He’s no fool.  The guy’s a billionaire!

MHTV:  Wasn’t Alan’s dream always to marry a billionaire?

Lorre:  Yes.  And now, there are issues of money, and a joint checking account.  And hopefully we can play this for comedy.  Their basic intention, I think, is wonderful.  They want to have a child.  And sexuality is irrelevant.  If you’re taking care of a child, who cares what you do in the privacy of your bedroom.  Isn’t that the whole point?

MHTV:   Or what you don’t do.   You have played with the gay subtext over the years.

Lorre:  Oh absolutely.  We have dominated the cheap laughs in that arena.  I know what the show is.  The show is what it is.  But it’s been hilariously good fun to do it.

MHTV:  Does this marriage and fatherhood preclude the guys from ending up in happily-ever-after relationships with women by the end of the show?

Lorre:  I think their romantic travails will go forward.  It’s a TV series, not a movie.  Their lives go on.  They’re going to be cheating spouses.

MHTV:  Like green card spouses “cheat” on each other?

Lorre:  Yes.  There’s no effort here in our last and final season to try to reach for any dignity.  It’s too late for that.

MHTV:  Has the child been cast?  How old is he?

Lorre:  We have not cast the child yet.  But we’re looking.  Probably between 5 and 10 years old. 

MHTV:  Definitely a boy?

Lorre:  We’re thinking a boy right now.  Because that was the essence of the whole idea in the beginning.  These two very different men raising a young boy, and trying to have an impact on his maturation.  And really the combination of the two of them was the best parent.  

MHTV:  When a show touches on LGBT themes in a comic way like this, there’s a potential for blowback.  Do you anticipate people having a problem with the storyline?

Lorre:  I hope there’s none.  The show has always caused controversy.  There’s no intention to insult or diminish anyone.  The intention is to create laughter.  That’s it.  Create laughter, and if it’s got a heartbeat in there somewhere, that would be nice, too.

MHTV:  Are you hoping to bring back any characters for the final season who were part of the show earlier?  Might we see Charlie or Charlie’s ghost?

Lorre:  We haven’t discussed that.  We were really focused on finding a storyline that puts Jon and Ashton front and center in a really interesting, hopefully funny and provocative story.  That was our priority going in in this last year.  What’s the storyline that puts these two guys right in the middle of it?  So outside characters will come in as they do, but that’s the focus right now.

MHTV:  It’s a storyline that has generated the most interest in the show in years.

Lorre:  Yes – in year twelve!

MHTV:  You’re like the SVU of comedy!  And the gay marriage storyline couldn’t be more timely.

Lorre:  Yeah, it’s timely, and again, it has a heartbeat.  Ashton Kutcher himself is a man with a huge heart – he’s very engaged in social welfare, and puts a lot of time and money into making things better.  And getting a little of that spirit in the show – rather than having him do what the show used to be – has been a journey.  This seems like the next logical step.  Not romance, not sex, but raising a child.  We had enough sex on this show.

MHTV:  Really?  There’s sex?  There are sex jokes?  I didn’t catch those.

Lorre:  I think adding any more sexual jokes on this show could actually be a misdemeanor of some sort.

Two and a Half Men

CBS

Returns Thursday, October 30

9 PM

Annie Potts Talks Turkey about GCB and Chick-Fil-A

Annie Potts as Gigi Stopper in the woefully short-lived GCB.

By the time in 1986 when Annie Potts showed up on the small screen in the role for which she will always be best remembered, Designing Women's Mary Jo Shively, I'd already loved her for years.  Anyone who came of age in the '80s may remember Potts' brilliant best-friend role in 1986' Pretty in Pink, or her wacky Ghostbusters receptionist Janine in both the original 1984 film and its 1989 sequel.

After Designing Women ended in '93, Potts went on to many more TV roles; the Kentucky native was awfully convincing to me as the Italian-American chef Dana Palladino, when she replaced Susan Dey as the female lead in the final two seasons of CBS' underrated sitcom Love & War.  Later, Potts headlined Lifetime's 1998-2002 series Any Day Now, and has also had regular or recurring roles on Huff, Joan of Arcadia, Men in Trees and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.

But of all Potts' roles, it was GCB about which I was most excited in recent years, bringing her back to the Southern milieu in which we all know she particularly shines.  I was shocked in May when ABC announced the show's cancellation -- surely the network could have given this fun romp of a show more of a chance to grow.

With the at that point soon-to-be GCB star Annie Potts
at the TCA convention in Pasadena, CA
January 2012

This past January, as GCB was about to make its debut, I had met Potts at the Television Critics of America conference in Pasadena, and took the photo, at right; both of us were full of hope that GCB would be ABC's next big soapy hit.  Cut to last week, at the TCA Summer conference in Beverly Hills, when I again spoke with Potts at a luncheon given by the Hallmark Channel, where the actress will be appearing in the TV movie The Music Teacher later this year.  It's always a pleasure talking with her, because of the way she answers questions; she speaks slowly, every word clearly being carefully chosen.  And so when Annie Potts speculates about the reasons behind GCB's premature demise, and about being a Southerner in the age of Chick-Fil-A, I'm that much more excited to listen.  Our interview, below:

Must Hear TV:  There’s a campaign out there to save GCB, if you’ve seen it on Facebook and Twitter.  Do you think it’ll have any effect?

I know.  But I believe if it was going to have any effect, then it would have had an effect already, regrettably.  Really regrettably.  Ah, GCB, RIP!  Bummer.

MHTV:  What do you think happened?

I think a lot of different things.  I think our ratings could have been a little better.  But you know they hardly give anything a chance.  I think if they’d given us a little time, we could have done better.  I think in the end, there were some advertising problems, because big advertisers had had some complaints.  If they get 10 emails going, “We don’t think you should be advertising during that…”  People got all flustered about what they thought we were, without seeing what we were doing.

MHTV:  Where were these people when the novel Good Christian Bitches [on which the show was based] came out?  It had the word “Bitches” in the title, and GCB didn’t even have that.

Yes, but I think it was implied.   There are some who were associated with it who felt like if we’d just named it something else, like “Homemade Sin” or something, that people wouldn’t have gotten their feathers ruffled from the get-go.  And that maybe we could have [lasted.]

MHTV:  It’s a shame people could be so closed-minded.  Not even seeing a show, yet three initials gets them riled up.

We could have named it “WTF,” and really pissed people off!

MHTV:  I wonder if that would have pissed Christians off as much as the idea that they think they’re being made fun of, with “GCB.”

I don’t know.  My Christian friends welcomed it, because I think everybody likes to smoke out hypocrisy when they can.  It’s like, “Hello, do you see how you’re saying one thing and doing another?”  So I felt that there was a lot of support in the Christian community.  But it only takes a few.

If you haven't heard, Chick-fil-A has
long supported hate groups like
the National Organization for Marriage
which advocate against gay rights.
Please don't patronize Chick-fil-A!

MHTV:  Speaking of Christians and the South, we happen to be in this moment right now where there’s a culture war going on, and Chick-fil-A has gotten itself embroiled.  You’re a Southerner, and you have obviously worked with gay people in Hollywood.  Do you have an opinion about this controversy?

Yes, I know about it.  I think maybe the problem is people having opinions on it.  I think if whoever is the head of Chick-fil-A had not espoused a bigoted opinion – it’s like, what does anybody care who people love?  They should be more interested in that they love.  Isn’t that what everybody’s supposed to be doing, and not be judgmental about who?  But, see, I’m judging him saying that.

MHTV:   I’m judging him too.  Because even if he’s entitled to his opinion, he’s supporting suppression of my rights with money we might be spending on his chicken sandwiches.

Yes, well I won’t eat there.  That’s all.  I grew up in a little town, and if somebody did something you didn’t like, my daddy would just say “We don’t trade there anymore.”  And I’d say, “We’ve been going to that gas station for 15 years!”  And he’d say, “We don’t trade there anymore.”  So I would say to Chick-fil-A, if people want to change things, then you just say, “We don’t trade there anymore.”

Of course, with the power of the media now, that’s essentially the same thing kind of closed GCB down.  People saying, “We’re not going to trade there.  We’re not going to tune into that show.”  Well fine, you don’t tune into the show.  And just keep it to yourself.

MHTV:  I thought it was a loving portrayal of Texans.  Yes, it pointed out hypocrisy, but I think everybody knows that that’s an element of Texas and of Big Religion.   I didn’t think it made particular fun of them.

I don’t think so either.   I know that it was not the intent of our creator, and our writers, who were almost all Christian.  Church every Sunday Christians.

MHTV:  This means we have another opportunity to bring you back to network television.  Do you have anything in your sights?

I’m trying to develop something right now.  But that is a long row to hoe always.  I love doing series television.  I’m a real workhorse in that way.  I love the work.  The work is hard, and the hours are long, but it’s what I’ve done for most of my adult life, and that’s what I like to do.

MHTV:  TV more than film at this point?  There are so many films fans love you in, too.

I think there are more opportunities for me in television.  Most movies are made for 14-year-old boys.

MHTV:  You’d have to be the long-suffering mom in film at this point.

I am a long-suffering mother.  So I would be happy to play that role.  But I think the roles are just better, with a little more complexity, in TV.

MHTV:  What kind of character would you like to play next?  A Southern woman again, or do you want to mix it up?

I always like to mix it up.  Although I think on television, there is some evidence that the kind of closer you are to the character you’re playing, the more successful you are.  And playing Southerners is something I really like to do.  I know them well, and I like to do that because I feel like sometimes Southerners aren’t portrayed as if they are complex characters.  And I always beg to differ on that.  And also, when you are playing a Southerner, you can say the most awful things and get away with it!

MHTV:  As long as it’s followed with “Bless your heart,” right?

That’s right.  So there are benefits to that, especially on TV.

Is The Marriage Ref Good for the Gays?

In all but five states of this union, gay people do not have the right to marry each other. But, according to Jerry Seinfeld yesterday at the Television Critics Association (TCA) convention in Pasadena, we gays will have The Marriage Ref.

The hourlong unscripted show sprang from the real-life marriage of executive producer Seinfeld, who once asked a friend to arbitrate a silly fight between him and his wife Jessica, who was in yesterday's audience. (For the record, Seinfeld says, he lost, and had to accept the friend's binding decision.)

He decided to turn the idea into a show, in which 3 to 5 real-life couples per episode will be videotaped at home, having the typical types of arguments that couples -- and yes, despite our supposed "alternate lifestyle," we gays, too -- have that run for years and tend to fester. One show, he explained, will show a wife whose husband prefers to park his Harley in the middle of the living room. Other issues may be less glaring. But in order not to trivialize or be flippant about serious issues like domestic abuse and child endangerment, none of the shows, the comedian emphasized, will go near issues "that makes you uncomfortable that the marriage might be in real trouble."

In the show's format, a panel of celebrity guests discusses each couple's video, and makes a case for one or the other of the complainants to judge Tom Papa, whose sole decision will be binding. And says Papa, a comedian whose previous TV work includes the short-lived (and New Jersey-set) 2004 NBC sitcom Come to Papa, his decision won't always be the obvious one. In the case of the Harley couple, for example, Papa hints that he may have found in favor of the husband. "She's yelling at him, 'You have a Harley in the living room!' And he's like, 'I understand that, dear.' He was so nice to her. I was like, 'What he is doing is completely insane, but how respectful is this guy? He's got to get points.'"

And of course, with the court case challenging Prop 8 about to begin here in California, it was on everyone's mind: For the Marriage Ref's services, what about gay marriages?

"Oh yeah, they're in," Seinfeld enthused.

"If you're married and you're fighting, send your tape," Papa added.

Not that there's anything wrong with that!

(The Marriage Ref will air a special sneak preview on Sunday, February 28, following NBC's coverage of the Closing Ceremony of the Winter Olympics, before settling into its regular Sunday time slot, from 8 to 9 PM beginning March 14.

The show will shoot episodes in New York starting Wednesday, January 27. So if you need help figuring out who should take out the garbage, call Jerry!)

Update for NO on Prop 8

I just corresponded with Evan Wolfson, the brains behind the fantastic organization Freedom to Marry, asking what more can we all do to make sure to defeat the hateful Proposition 8. His main suggestion: go to the No On Prop 8 web site.

On the easy-to-use site, you can send out either a pre-written or your own customized email to friends and relatives in California, explaining just why this ballot measure has to be defeated. Please, everyone -- this is the time to explain to that elderly aunt on the West Coast why she needs to stand up for equal rights for all!

The other important things we can all do, all of which are available on the No On Prop 8 site, are of course to contribute financially, to enable the No campaign to counteract those horrible pro-Prop ads running incessantly on TV.

And also, you can volunteer to work the phone bank, reaching out to CA households.

Let's step up, all of us -- Californians or no. (And no, I'm not forgetting that anti-gay amendments are up for vote in Florida and Arizona as well!)

As Evan signed off his email to me,
"We can win -- but it's close."

Take it from Ellen -- Please vote NO on Prop 8!

Today on her national talk show, Ellen DeGeneres wisely took to task Republican VP nominee Sarah Palin, and Palin's avowed support for a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. Take a look:



Way to go, Ellen! And of course I agree: I don't see how your relationship with Portia -- or mine with Frank -- has any affect at all on the "institution" of marriage, or any individual straight couple's union. Does my getting married here in NYC suddenly make some Iowa couple's marriage certificate burst into flames?

The Constitution of the United States is a sacred document. It's right up there with the Bible in the short list of the greatest works of God or Mankind. So far, apart from that dalliance we had with Prohibition in the '20s, it has remained unsullied, an ideal for civilizations across the globe in providing and maintaining our inalienable freedoms.

What the Constitution is not is a blank canvas to be sprayed with hate graffiti. We as a nation and as a species cannot support any politician who advocates writing hate speech, writing discrimination, into this sacred text. Or, for that matter, scapegoating any particular group in order to secure power; have we learned nothing since WWII? Remember, if today it's the gays losing their rights, who's next? It could be you, via whatever ethnic or religious group to which you belong by accident of birth, or via whatever sexual identity or handicap you were assigned, as even the right-wingers who hate gays would have to admit, by God.

Forty-some years ago, the ignorant among Americans expressed concern -- or did worse -- to suppress another supposed marital sin, "miscegenation." Today, those people are the villains in our history books and in our hearts. This election season, the state of California, which recently by state supreme court decree legalized gay unions, faces a new challenge: ballot referendum "Proposition 8," which aims to override that decision, and roll back the rights of so many citizens. To those Californians inclined to support the hateful Prop 8, I implore you: don't repeat the mistakes of the past. Save your future self the shame of this misplaced suspicion and hate. Save yourself the apologies you'll have to make, to your country, to your friends, and to the scared gay members of your own family, in this generation and the next.

Sarah Palin has gone to great lengths to put forth that she has a lesbian friend -- a best friend, she says. And yet, even as she professes her love and support for her friend, Palin is ready to strip away her rights, and make her a permanent second-class citizen in the highest rule of law in the land. Professing loyalty while all the while betraying; isn't this just what Judas did? Sarah Palin is at the very least a bad friend. Let's not make her a bad VP or, God forbid, president.

But Palin aside, we must realize we are living in historic times. And for better or worse, Proposition 8 will be part of that history. We Americans -- and you in California in particular -- have the chance on November 4 to stand up for freedom, and to set this country and by example the world on the course to true peace. Please, California -- vote No on Proposition 8, and show the world why we Americans deserve to call our country the Home of the Free and the Brave.

And Now, a Word From...

Abraham Higginbotham
Creator/Executive Producer, FOX's

Do Not Disturb

This past July, Abraham Higginbotham, the creator of Fox’s new sitcom Do Not Disturb, appeared before a panel of TV critics at their semi-annual convention in Beverly Hills. The out gay Higginbotham has an impressive resume in comedy: for two seasons, he wrote for the beloved cult comedy Arrested Development before jumping ship to join the final season of Will & Grace and then Fox’s under-appreciated Back To You.

That last show, the critics noted, was hailed upon its premiere as the Great Hope for the return of the traditional sitcom – but Fox cancelled it after one ratings-challenged season nonetheless. So how is Higginbotham’s new show, set at a wacky Manhattan boutique hotel, different? And will it succeed where Back To You failed, in breaking the apparent multi-camera sitcom curse?

“I was very surprised that [Back To You] didn’t work,” Higginbotham began by saying, “because of the pedigree of the people who were associated with it, from the cast, to the directors, to the writing staff… [which] was actually one of the most fun groups of people and intelligent and quick writers I’ve ever worked with… But I guess in terms of what we’re doing differently, I think—“

“—Hm-mmm. Working with this,” Niecy Nash interrupted him, pointing herself out with her trademark sass. “This is way different right here.”

Apart from his fun leading lady – who made a fabulous guest appearance on The Frank DeCaro Show a few weeks ago – Higginbotham says he has a few other tricks in mind to break the multi-camera sitcom mold. For one thing, the show will be spending Mondays exploring its unusually elaborate sets (built by masterful Will & Grace set designer Glenda Rovello) filming “walk and talk”-type scenes without a studio audience. That way, the show can “find some interesting places within the set to shoot, and just to expand the world a little bit so it doesn’t feel like you’re just doing a proscenium, and just watching five people talk in a room of fifty.”


The Gay Secret Weapon

Another of Higginbotham’s secret weapons to garner Do Not Disturb some attention: one of this season’s few new gay characters. Played by The Class’ standout Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Frank’s guest yesterday, as a matter of fact), hotel worker Larry may seem, as one critic pointed out to Higginbotham, rather stereotypical. In one scene, after hearing that a well-endowed homeless man is flashing people on the corner, Larry’s response is “What corner?”

“It’s my hope that all the characters… grow as the season goes on,” Higginbotham answered. In a pilot, “you have 21 minutes to introduce six or seven characters… and you don’t necessarily get to do everything you want to do… But that character is very important to me personally because he’s grumpy and married, and that’s me – grumpy, gay and married.”

“To me,” he continued, “the originality of that character comes from the fact that he’s the one person on the entire show who’s in a relationship.” As for that penis-on-the-corner joke (which I think is kind of funny!), “There were about five different jokes there, [and] that’s the one we went with in the final analysis. But I guess where I want to take the character is more that he’s more interesting than…being gay… That is one characteristic… We want to make him as interesting as possible and certainly not have the fact that he’s gay and likes giant penises as his most interesting trait.”


After the panel, I caught up with Higginbotham and asked about the genesis of the Do Not Disturb idea – as well as some more personal questions about the Larry character and the perfect political timing of his TV -- and possibly real-life -- gay marriage.

Must-Hear TV: On the panel, you referred to the “upstairs-downstairs” dynamic of working in a hotel. Did this idea come from your own experience?

Abraham Higginbotham: I worked at the Paramount Hotel in New York in 1992, when it first started, and I always thought it would be a great setting. It was one of the first of all these boutique hotels that have shown up that are hyper stylish – “cheap chic,” they called it at the time. And there was so much drama, with all these idiot twentysomethings running around with their first paychecks, making huge mistakes. It was such a perfect place to put someone like Niecy who is a loving, tough-talking mother figure.


MHTV: So should I presume that the Jesse character is the one you most relate to in the show? Is that you, back in your days at the Paramount?

AH: I don’t know about that. Jesse is a really easy character for me -- it’s who I am in many ways, but there’s also such a big part of Rhonda in me. Where I grew up, one of the most profoundly important relationships I had in my life was with a black woman who was probably 30 at the time, who was a mother figure to me as well. She was a dancer and I was a dancer. She was my teacher. [Joyce Ellis was the founder and leader of Pittsburgh’s WAMO (106.7 FM) Hot Trax Dancers, a group to which Higginbotham belonged while attending Trinity High School in Washington, PA in the late ‘80s.]

So that was a huge part of it. And while Niecy is a lovely human being who says she can get along with the devil, I can’t. So I took that part of my personality and put it in the Rhonda character, and let Niecy fill in the rest. But also with Neil and Nicole – I have my eating issues, I have my order issues, I have my power issues. So yes, Larry’s character is very clearly [like me] – it’s the persona that I do at work to entertain my writer friends, but it’s not necessarily the truth of my life.


MHTV: You referred to Larry as “married,” even though your show is set in New York. But you live in California, where marriage is legal. Are you actually legally wed?

AH: No, we’re not actually married. But I’m in a 5-year relationship with my partner [an event planner.]


MHTV: What can we look forward to from the gay character? What will their storylines entail?

AH: We’re definitely going to meet [Larry’s husband] Victor. Victor is not going to be some weird entity on the phone. It’s not Maris, it’s not someone we’ll be only talking about. He’ll be a part of the show. I hope to show a relationship that shows the truth of gay marriage, the possibility of gay marriage becoming legal -- and the panic that that sends certain men into. That [as a gay man] you were like, “I thought I was going to get away without having to do this, and make these big decisions. Or have kids.” And now you might have to. Larry is ambivalent about his relationship anyway, so it’ll be interesting for him to decide whether to move forward and invest or pull out. We all talk about wanting gay marriage, and we do, but it’s terrifying in some ways. Because it’s a big commitment.


MHTV: Do you and your partner think about it?

AH: Yeah. We will probably do it soon. Any time a straight person says, “I’m getting married,” I’m thinking, “Are you sure you want to do that? Really?” And every time I go to a wedding, I’m always like, “Eh.” I’ve never had that thing in my head where I imagine my wedding. I don’t care about my own gay marriage. But I want it for the world.





Do Not Disturb
Wednesdays at 9:30 PM Eastern
FOX