Charlie Sheen is in heaven. 'Anger Management' is the perfect show for him. He gets to walk around a set, cracking badly written jokes while a laugh-track validates them. The entire show is laden with attractive women who were probably in grade school when Sheen was doing 'Major League.' He gets to pretend to have a sex-filled no-strings-attached relationship with Selma Blair. And, to top it all off, the man who once pronounced "I’m different. I have a different constitution. I have a different brain, I have a different heart. I got tiger blood, man," is playing a psychologist. One of the world's greatest ironies I guess.
The problem – well the show has a ton of problems, but the biggest – is the fact that ‘Anger Management’ doesn’t play on the Charlie Sheen is batshit insane. It tries to make him a level-headed psychologist who happens to simply be way too addicted to females. At least one thing carried over from Charlie’s real-life shenanigans. Whenever one of his patients professes something crazy, or over-the-top, Charlie rolls his eyes, the laugh-track guffaws, and then he tries to set them straight. How much funnier would a show be about a therapist who happens to be just as crazy as Sheen is in real-life?
It doesn’t really matter though. ‘Anger Management’ is so bland, and so dull, one wonders why someone would want to buy it on Blu-ray and rewatch it again, and again. The show’s formula hasn’t changed from the first season. Sheen begins almost every episode gathered in his living room with his group of patients.
I’m tempted to copy-and-paste the paragraph describing the show’s ancillary characters from my season one review. Partly because writing new content about ‘Anger Management’ make my head hurt; and partly because of the irony that nothing has changed on the show at all. Patrick (Michael Arden) is the passive-aggressive gay character who lacks self-confidence. Ed (Barry Corbin) is Patrick’s mortal enemy, a homegrown geriatric bigot who lacks any sort of tact. Nolan (Derek Richardson) is a quiet introvert who lacks social skills. And Lacey (Noureen DeWulf ) is the sexy Indian character who yells at everyone, but commands attention because of her sitcom-hot looks.
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The fact that this show made it through a second season is surprising to me. I can’t imagine people actually planning to tune into it every week. However, I thought the same thing about ‘Two and a Half Men’ and that show was and remains inexplicably popular.
Season two features maybe one or two semi-interesting storylines. In one episode Charlie’s father (played by his real-life father Martin Sheen) comes to visit. The gimmick is light-hearted fun for the first 10 minutes. There are a couple other episodes that focus more on the patients, which is a nice respite from chronicling Charlie’s endless female conquests. Yet again, most of the season revolves around Charlie trying to get into the pants of (extremely) younger women. Yes, it’s just as sleazy as it sounds even if there is a laugh-track trying to lighten the mood.
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Blu-ray: Vital Disc Stats
The second season of ‘Anger Management’ comes to Blu-ray in a two-disc set. Both discs are 50GBs. A UltraViolet Digital Copy is also provided. It’s labeled as a Region A release.
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Well, it looks like a sitcom. It’s bright and cheery. Really colorful, but overall it’s soft almost all of the time. Although the detail is good enough to see the wear and tear on the faces of Sheen and Blair. Lionsgate has given this release a 1080p AVC-encoded transfer that looks pretty much identical to season one.
The clarity is there. Everything is where it’s supposed to be really. Colors may seem a tad oversaturated. Contrast might be a bit off given the sitcom setting. But, there’s nothing that really distinguishes it. In the end it’s just there. It’s a video presentation that doesn’t have one notable thing about it. I liked the detail fine. I didn’t notice any real hiccups in artifacting. The overall softness of the program is the real drawback here. But, if you liked the first season’s presentation then this one is for you.
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That laugh track gets really annoying really fast. There’s nothing that the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix can do for it. It’s right there, assaulting your ear drums any time it’s on. The laugh track actually seems to be a bit louder than other shows. Since the laugh track is designed to fill in pauses after jokes, there aren’t any lines of dialogue that are hampered by the canned laughter.
As in the first season release, the second season features very little in the way of surround sound. There are a few scenes in restaurants where you think you might here some ambient sound. The low-end section of the track is almost non-existent. Yup. It’s just as forgettable as the first season.
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I never enjoyed the first season, and the second season is just as painfully unfunny. Charlie Sheen is as sleazy as ever. There’s no denying that. The show’s premise is just an excuse to let Sheen galavant with younger women, which is pretty repulsive to watch. The show really isn’t any good. It’s as bad as sitcoms come. Steer clear.
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