The Two and a Half Men Project: 1 woman, 24 episodes, too many hooker jokes to count

(Photo courtesy of CBS)You won, America. You got this female Bravo series fanatic to tune into CBS every Monday night for the most watched sitcom on TV.

Wait, that's not what you were trying to do by collectively watching "Two and a Half Men?" Don't play coy with me. The hit series, now in its eighth season and slated for another in 2011, has kept its stronghold on the ratings' top 10 lists since its debut in 2003. Charlie Sheen now claims the highest salary of any television star banking $1.25 million an episode. Even the 1/2 man, 17 year-old, Angus T. Jones is earning $300,000 per episode these days. And why shouldn't he? 14 million viewers watched last week's episode.

14 million people can't be wrong. Or can they? As a veteran viewer of reality/true crime/weird medical nightmares, I've shied away from the sitcom in general. Only an occasional "30 Rock" binge has shaken my ground. But for the next few months, I'm venturing out of my comfort zone and into the land of dude humor. Every Tuesday morning I'll be recapping new episodes of "Two and a Half Men" on Shine, so you don't have to.

If Monday's episode is anything like the past three I gulped down last night on the series' website, there will be plenty of jokes about hookers and drinking problems, some legitimately funny deliveries by 17 year-old Jones, and lots of topics that will require tactful write-arounds.

My first impression of the show: IT'S REALLY DIRTY. Way dirtier than anything else on network TV. In the past three weeks, the 1/2 man became a whole man, with the help of not one but two teenage girls. John Cryer's character Alan, a cross between PeeWee Herman and JimBob Duggar, shows 14 million viewers exactly how he pleasures a woman with his tongue. And Charlie Sheen's laugh-track bolstered alter-ego talks about his bloody underpants and raping his brother. Family viewing, it's not.

It's not that the show is more graphic than say, "Sex and the City," "The Sopranos," or even "CSI." It's that it maintains the classic sitcom format, despite the content. Canned laughter sounds off like a snooze-button alarm every third beat. And the biggest laughs come when Charlie reminds the audience that he regularly sleeps with hookers and drinks whiskey from morning to night. Is it funny, because it's kind of true? Or not funny for the very same reason? Last season canceled two of it's episodes as Sheen, a self-professed Heidi Fleiss client, faced assault charges from his ex and later entered rehab. If this were a reality show it'd be shocking. But in the confines of the Malibu beach-house set, no one ever hits rock bottom. No one reaches the top, either.

On one episode this season, Charlie decides to give up one half of his defining characteristic: drinking. At first I thought: wow, they're really dealing with this issue. I wonder if it will be a "very special episode." Turns out he only meant he's switching to beer and wine. It becomes a running, if tired, joke the rest of the episode. By episode three he's back to whiskey, neat. And no one seems to care either way.

Meanwhile the entire premise of the show--two odd couple brothers living together with a young boy--is threatened when Alan moves in with his girlfriend on episode two this season. Again I was surprised by the shake-up of the format. But by the end of the third episode, when Alan accidentally sets fire to his girlfriend's house, I remembered the number one rule of sitcoms: nothing can ever change.

It's the opposite of reality programming, which thrives on the rapid rise and fall of its subjects. But this isn't about real life. Or is it? While there's no laughter in Sheen's real-life antics, his reality has followed the rules of sitcoms like no other star who came before him. He's been in and out of rehab and linked to unsavory scandals since the '80s, and nothing has changed. He's still famous, successful and embroiled in scandal, just like the scripted Charlie. So in a way "Two and a Half Men" is kind of a reality show. Possibly even a groundbreaking one.

Maybe "Housewives" aren't so different from "Men." And men, the predominant viewers of "Men", aren't so different from women. Except when it comes to humor. Some recent things that made me laugh on TV: Jill Zarin's dog licking the inside of her nose, or Kelly Bensimon saying nonsensical witticisms like "Satchels of Gold." I didn't laugh when John Cryer gurgled water because his mouth was tired from trying to get Courtney Thorne Smith off. (P.S. she dates down on TV). In fact, I was kind of disgusted.

But then again, I'm not a guy-- the demographic that forms a bulk of the 14 million viewers. I've tried watching "Housewives" with straight men and it's not a pretty picture. ("Is it over yet? Now you're watching the same episode again for a closer read?") So maybe I'll learn something about a gender I'm clearly in the dark on.

In the past three episodes of the season, I gathered some enlightening information: women who don't orgasm often are harder to love, an orgy requires six or more people, bloody boxer shorts are likely caused by a sticking zipper, and no matter how much sex, money and biting humor is attributed to the teenage star of the show, he'll always be half a man.

Being a guy isn't easy. More breakthroughs Tuesday.