Charlie Sheen is once again on top of the rating charts after the Season 1 premiere of Anger Management. The scripted comedy series performed better than cabler FX ever expected, demonstrating that the troubled star still has some prime time pull.
Anger Management is based on the 2003 comedy film of the same name that starred Adam Sandler and Jack Nicholson. Sheen, who’s been out of acting work since being fired in March 2011 from CBS’s Two and a Half Men, plays the anger management therapist originally played by Nicholson in the film.
Sheen’s character ‘Charlie’ has a history of anger problems that ultimately ruined a promising Major League Baseball career. He subsequently put his anger under control with the help of another therapist, leading him to pursue a career as a therapist himself. Now he holds therapy sessions at home, while counseling prison inmates in his free time.
But, what made Sheen so appealing that he drew in a record breaking 5.5 million viewers on the first night and 5.7 viewers for the second episode, making it the most-watched, scripted comedy series debut ever? Most likely it’s because sheen is playing himself. His role is not only name-sake deep, it showcases a man just like him and perhaps many of the men in America with similar self destructive flaws and vices. So as it was clearly seen during his public meltdown after the debacle with Two And A Half Men producers, flawed, a self destructive man who make us laugh is good for TV.
