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

Fall Preview: CBS' Mom

Mom

Mondays at 9:30 PM Eastern/8:30 PM Central,

Premiering September 23

As the executive producer of a trio of today’s top comedies, Chuck Lorre might want to take some advice from his Big Bang Theory character Sheldon:  look into cloning.  Because this fall, after already bringing forth the Big Bang, plus Two and a Half Men and Mike & Molly, this man in demand is bringing his fourth sitcom to CBS.

Co-created by Lorre and his Men writers Eddie Gorodetsky and Gemma Baker, Mom is the story of Christy (Anna Faris), a thirtysomething waitress at a posh Napa Valley restaurant who struggles not only with the challenges of being a single mom to a rebellious teenage daughter and pre-teen son, but with addiction.  Christy’s four-month-and-counting sobriety will continually be tested, now that her man-hungry mother Bonnie (Allison Janney), herself a (barely) recovering alcoholic, has reappeared in her life, armed with passive-aggressive insights and questionable advice.

“I’ve always wanted to tell the story about somebody trying to reclaim his or her life after destroying it, repairing the damage of perhaps a poorly thought-out lifestyle,” Lorre says of his latest inspiration.  With Mom, “We get to see the second act of Christy’s life.  I think the idea of a second chance is a very American theme.”

After building a successful career on the big screen, Faris chose Mom as her first TV project, similarly moved by the show’s complex dynamic and message.   “On film, I’ve played a lot of very simple characters, so now it’s fun to play someone like Christy, who’s so complicated,” explains the 36-year-old actress and real-life mom to year-old son Jack with her husband, actor Chris Pratt.  “Christy is flawed, but trying to be better.  She has the best of intentions, but doesn’t always know the right way to get there.  I think we all have issues like that to some degree, whether it’s from not yet achieving your life goal, or not being sober, or having financial struggles.  I think that’s why from page one as I read this script, it felt like Cinderella’s shoe.  I realized, ‘Wow, this is me!’”

After winning four Emmys during her stint on The West Wing, Faris’ co-star Allison Janney is already TV royalty, and was equally eager to become America’s new favorite Mom.  “The best comedies deal with the reality of recognizable situations without always trying too hard to be ‘funny,’” Janney enthuses.  “With Mom, everybody will be able to recognize the truths behind this very frustrating relationship.”

Chuck Lorre's Vanity on Display

Chuck Lorre

For the past decade and a half, Chuck Lorre’s sitcoms have brought viewers a little something extra – whether they noticed it or not.

“When I was growing up, record albums had liner notes, where they added stuff that made the whole thing cooler,” Lorre remembers.  And so, rather than finishing off each of his episodes with a static production company logo, Lorre decided that “each show would have something to read at the end – if you cared to.”

Now, after a full generation of Lorre’s fans has squinted to spy his words on their sometimes wobbly screens – remember VCRs? – the prolific writer/producer of Two and a Half Men, Big Bang Theory and Mike & Molly has compiled his nearly 400 mini-essays into a new coffee table book, What Doesn’t Kill Us Makes Us Bitter (Simon & Schuster, $100)

In his vanity card following the November 2 episode of Big Bang Theory, Lorre referred viewers to his web site, where he could blast Mitt Romney without having to have his message approved -- or more likely rejected -- by his network's censors.  The contents of that card, #397, earned lots of press, showing that like me, people really care what Lorre has to say on these things.  That's why this past summer, during the semi-annual Television Critics Association convention in Beverly Hills, I caught up with Lorre for the following exclusive interview, to find out how it feels to see his Bitter experience turning out so sweet.

Must-Hear TV:  What has it meant to have that small amount of network airtime each week, to express what’s on your mind?

Lorre:  My vanity cards are on the air at the end of the show for maybe a second.  But it’s been a nice opportunity to experiment with writing something other than a script, these little essays about things that would never have found their way onto the page.

MHTV:   Is it therapeutic to have a way to get things off your chest?

Lorre:  The only way to call it “therapy” would be if one might say I was getting better.  It’s just a chance to write in a way that hopefully is amusing to somebody.

MHTV:   Obviously they have been.  When did you notice they were catching on?

Lorre:  About 14 or 15 years ago, when I was doing Dharma & Greg, I noticed that there started to be web sites with my name on them.  The late ‘90s on the Internet were the wild wild west.  I realized I could possibly lose control over my own writing.  So, defensively, I had to create a web site of my own in order to maintain some kind of control.

MHTV:  Proceeds from the book benefit your charity, the Dharma-Grace Foundation.  What is its focus?

Lorre:  I started the Dharma-Grace Foundation in 1999, to funnel funds into the Venice [Calif.] Family Clinic, which provides free healthcare to anyone who walks in the door.  It’s a meaningful organization to me, having been without healthcare earlier times in my life.  I know what that feels like – it’s a frightening thing.  Now the Foundation also distributes money to other organizations that seem like they are doing good work, in education as well as healthcare.

MHTV:  Some of the cards are appearing in the book for the first time, having been originally censored.  Why weren’t they originally allowed to air?

Lorre:  There are about a dozen of them, and there were different reasons each time.  Sometimes they were considered risqué, and sometimes the politics were not acceptable.  But I very rarely get political.  I try to honor the fact that CBS is not in the business of broadcasting my political opinions.  So I’ve been very careful, and I try to see the big picture and avoid any controversy.  Lots of different people like to watch Two and a Half Men, Big Bang Theory and Mike and Molly.  They’re coming to my house as guests, and it would be rude to use that access to offend them.

MHTV:  You started presenting the cards on Dharma & Greg and Grace Under Fire, both of which aired on ABC.  Has there been any difference in doing the vanity cards on ABC versus now on CBS?

Lorre:  No, both networks are very nervous about [the cards] in general, and they scrutinize them.  I imagine both networks would prefer that they didn’t exist at all.  But CBS has been patient and reluctantly trudged forward with these things.  There’s no upside to them.  They’re in the business of selling ad time, and making money, and vanity cards are not a profit source.  But my whole argument has always been, if they bring in just one more viewer who might be curious, that’s got to be good for CBS.

MHTV:  It is a smart investment – a random production company logo isn’t going to bring in anybody.  So why not write something funny that might grab viewers?

Lorre:  With DVRs, every second of television time is now available to you.  Literally, every second can be frozen forever.  So it’s changed the way time works in television.  It’s made every second more valuable or more problematic – your choice.

MHTV:  You have three shows on the air on CBS, bearing your name each week.  Do you still get that thrill of authorship, seeing your name on this book?

Lorre:  It’s really gratifying any time you make something up and it becomes a reality.  On Big Bang Theory, Wolowitz went into space.  To walk onto the stage, and see the Soyuz space capsule!  Made of balsa wood, but it was still there.  It was startling and immensely gratifying.  There was a guy with hammers and nails making it real.

MHTV:  And now there’s someone with a printing press making it real.  Is it the same feeling?

Lorre:  Very much so.  It’s very gratifying.  And the best news is, that it’s already written.  The best part of writing is having written.

MHTV:  Some of your more famous vanity cards over the years have mentioned conflicts with coworkers and costars.  Are those in the book?

Lorre:  They’re all there.

MHTV:  So we can relive all kinds of sitcom history by this book, whether for good or for bad?

Lorre:  That’s very wisely put.  I wrote the cards at times in my life when that was the only way I knew how to articulate my feelings, my frustrations and my fears.   My attempts at being funny sometimes fail.   But there they are.