Welcome to a new Sitcom Tuesday! My coverage of The Middle will begin next week. In the meantime, I’m excited to set the figurative table by resurrecting a post from this blog’s thirteen-year run — another entry from the year in which The Middle premiered, the final TV season of the 2000s decade. You know how this works — I provide a link to a piece that I first published several seasons ago, and then I offer some updated commentary, relevant to today…

Let’s revisit… The Ten Best TWO AND A HALF MEN Episodes of Season Seven: https://jacksonupperco.com/2024/03/19/the-ten-best-two-and-a-half-men-episodes-of-season-seven/

Unlike last week’s rerun of the seventh season of Curb, I’m not claiming that this equivalent year of Two And A Half Men is a great collection or one of the best showings from 2009-2010. In fact, after revisiting what I first published back in 2024, I’m reminded of just how much the series had already declined from its peak. And, honestly, it’s a show that I’ve never personally loved, anyway — even when it was at its best. That is, although its general ethos can truly be deemed an outgrowth of the crass Charlie character — and I do have to admit that I think the show’s straightforward design made textbook situation comedy a reliable occurrence for a long while (with laughs and story predicated on the leads and their premised dynamics) — its whole tenor, and specifically its jokes and stories, were not as aligned with my personal tastes as other series. Indeed, I always have to remind myself not to discount the show. Not only because of its capacity to regularly offer simple, by-the-book situation comedy — but also because just a cursory glance at the loglines and pictures of the ten episodes I selected to represent this season’s finest suggests that, well, the show was still able at this post-peak juncture to eke out ten single reflections of its identity that are, at face value and on paper, solid. Meaning, the characters seem to be deployed based on their known depictions, and the plots reinforce both the premise and the series’ now well-cultivated central themes (including its ribald, sex-obsessed sense of humor). Accordingly, it paints a picture of Men being largely consistent with regard to sitcommery — regardless of how subjectively enjoyable it actually proved to be, or how it was then faring within the series’ own trajectory… Of course, to that point, I can’t ignore that this is also the last year for which I can muster any positivity on that front. In Season Eight, Charlie’s last — even before Ashton Kutcher and the situation’s formal destruction — the samples no longer look good. At least, not as good as Seven’s. So, I have to salute this sitcom — it’s never great, but for a while, it’s steady. And in this genre, that counts for a lot.

Come back next week for The Middle! And stay tuned tomorrow for a new Wildcard!