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Hercules Can’t Be Bothered
To Rage Against FX’s Tired, Terrible New Charlie Sheen Sitcom ANGER MANAGEMENT!!

Published at: June 28, 2012, 8:14 a.m. CST

FX’s feeble new laughtrack sitcom from Bruce Helford (“The Drew Carey Show,” “Freddie,” “George Lopez”), “Anger Management” casts Charlie Sheen as an anger management specialist.

Early reports suggested Sheen would assume the role played by Jack Nicholson in the 2003 Adam Sandler movie of the same name. But Nicholson played Dr. Buddy Rydell. Sheen plays an ex-ballplayer-turned psychologist named Charlie Goodson. There appears to be no character named Dave Buznik. The sitcom does not now appear to have anything to do with the movie beyond a shared title.

Charlie runs therapy groups. One of his patients is played by Barry Corbin (“Northern Exposure”). Michael Boatman (who worked with Sheen on “Spin City”) plays his neighbor, Brett Butler (“Grace Under Fire”) plays his favorite bartender, Shawnee Smith (“Becker”) plays his ex-wife and Selma Blair (“Hellboy”) plays the fellow psychologist he likes to bone.

Is it at least as funny as “Two and a Half Men,” Sheen’s last sitcom? From what I’ve seen of both, my vote is it is not.

I laughed not once during the first two “Anger” episodes; it’s one of those awful shows that’s silly without being funny -- the silliest component being Goodson’s decision to stop having sex with the Selma Blair character so he can become her patient.

In fact, nothing in this series is one tenth as funny as Sheen’s DirecTV ad:

HitFix says:

... The pilot's not especially funny, but it would fit comfortably alongside half the CBS comedy lineup (assuming CBS would ever employ Sheen again), just as it would have been a comfortable fit next to "Drew Carey" or "The Norm Show" or any of Helford's other series --- “Anger Management” is Charlie Sheen doing what Charlie Sheen does — on-screen. It's not artful, it's not elegant, and it makes a very weird lead-in to the "Wilfred"/"Louie" double feature in the 10 o'clock hour, but it will likely give his fans what they want. …

HuffPost TV says:

... this repulsive show will no doubt go a long way toward solidifying Sheen's image as a harmless party boy (an image that the media is all too willing to go along with), and erase the image of Sheen as a man who has repeatedly been accused of being violent toward women. Yet despite the careful attention to image enhancement possibilities, the core ugliness and toxic narcissism of "Anger Management" are impossible to ignore. …

The New York Times says:

... is at heart a simple, old-fashioned sitcom, with raucous recorded laughter and predictable one-liners. …

The Los Angeles Times says:

… I found it about as funny as I found Sheen's last series, which is to say not that funny, though I can see that some will. …

The Chicago Sun-Times says:

... a so-so sitcom peppered with equal parts funny lines and groaners. …

The San Francisco Chronicle says:

... This is all fairly predictable stuff and makes for a show that you'd watch because of the cast but would never put in the top tier of TV shows or talk about the next day at the office. A show something like "Two and a Half Men," as a matter of fact. …

The Washington Post says:

... Turns out it was all part of an elaborate personal journey from one mediocre sitcom to a slightly less mediocre one… Nothing in “Anger Management” is all bad, but not much of it is better than half-good. …

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette says:

... obvious, minimally funny new sitcom …

The Boston Globe says:

... just an average sitcom with a few good laugh lines here and there … Unless you’re a Sheen loyalist, there is no light at the end of the “Anger Management” tunnel, it’s only a train. We recommend getting out of the way.

USA Today says:

It's as if Charlie Sheen never left TV. And no, that's not a compliment. … And you can't complain if the show funnels a larger audience to Wilfred and Louie. The proximity just isn't doing any favors for Anger Management, which looks even more old-school and clunky than it otherwise might in comparison.

The Hollywood Reporter says:

... For his part, Sheen proves why he’s bankable. No matter what happens in his personal life, he nails his lines, uses his face and physical nature to make punch lines funnier than they might be, and commands a multicamera sitcom better than pretty much everybody in the business. It also would be needlessly high-brow (and inaccurate) to say that Anger Management doesn’t have a string of funny jokes scattered throughout. But they are variations on what you’ve heard a million times and are, at the core, fairly predictable. That might be ratings gold on a broadcast network, but the guess here is that people search out comedies like House of Lies on Showtime or Girls on HBO because they want something different.…

Variety says:

... To their credit, Sheen, the talented cast and seasoned writers know how to make it all look slick and polished, even if there's nary an original bone in its body -- down to the audience's excessively boisterous laughter. …

9 p.m. Thursday. FX.

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