On Monday, Deadline.com reported that Charlie Sheen's character on Two and Half Men would be killed off to make way for Ashton Kutcher. The season would start with Charlie Harper's funeral, all his exes in attendance and his house being put on the market. Kutcher would be one of the potential buyers.
Today, CBS President Nina Tassler took the stage at the network's TCA presentation to face the inevitable questions about Sheen, Kutcher and Men. Did she have some answers for us? Yes! And no...
Regarding the whole funeral plotline for Sheen's character, Tassler says: "I know that's out there, but I'm not going to confirm or deny that. The mystery is a part of the marketing."
Mystery indeed! After all, the marketing campaign's tagline is "all will be revealed" on the premiere date: Sept. 19. Tassler continued: "As we said, the whole marketing is that all will be revealed on [the premiere] date. Mystery is a part of marketing. It's going to be a big event and I think the chatter and the conversation and the discussion is part of what the fun might be."
But we were able to get some new info out of Tassler. Kutcher will be playing an Internet billionaire named Walden Schmidt (such a pretty name), and he comes in with "a broken heart." The season premiere will also be a two-parter over two weeks.
Tassler turned the coy back on when asked whether Walden would be related to any of the returning characters, only repeating that mystery is part of the marketing.
Finally, Tassler used the word "extraordinary" to distract us from the fact that she's not really answering a question. One reporter asked what she learned from the whole Charlie Sheen situation, and she basically just talked up Kutcher and ignored that the whole Sheen thing went down.
"What we learned is that we have an extraordinary cast. I was just at the table read on Monday. We have extraordinary writers. We have extraordinary actors," she gushed. "And [I learned] that there is great value in hiring an actor like Ashton Kutcher. He is an extraordinarily professional, talented, funny, and gifted actor who comes with a tremendous amount of commitment and enthusiasm. [He was] embraced by an extraordinarily talented cast. The show is brilliantly written, and extraordinarily produced. And [we] have an opportunity moving forward to create this amazing character and deliver a great show. That's just a few of the things I learned."
Maybe the new tagline should be "extraordinary."
Other highlights from the CBS presentation included talks of Emmy magnet The Good Wife. Apparently, Alicia (Julianna Margulies) will go through a "very interesting character transformation" this season.
Tassler also spoke on Ted Danson coming onto CSI, a move that she called "the right choice" for the show. "We looked at a number of different choices, the arc of the stories this season, what [executive producers] Carol Mendelsohn and Don McGill wanted to do. He just seemed like the right choice," she said. "He's a huge TV star, has a tremendous amount of charisma and when his name came up we just jumped at it." Danson's character is named D.B. Russell, and he will play a huge part in bringing the team back together.
Do you think they'd kill of Charlie Harper? What do you think of Ashton's character? Let loose in the comments below!