[soneca]

I started to feel this way watching Two and a Half Men, because of the character Allan. After some years of laughs I just felt awkward because there was this, incredibly unlucky, with no particular skill socially or professionally, mistreated by everybody, from his ex-wife to his brother's maid, humiliated by women, with no will-power to fight back. Really, it was just sad. Usually even the weak characters have some quality, some strenght you have to admire in them - as a pure heart. They stripped Allan from all that.

But I guess other people started feeling the same way because they change it a little bit. They gave him a beautiful, nice girlfriend, some qualities, some character, some opinion. As a result it is a more human character now, not a freak show.

And about BBT, I guess the writers give the characters some of these qualities, so I don't feel as awkward whatching it as I was watching 2&1/2Men.

[phaus]

For me the awkwardness started when I realized that Charlie Sheen was playing himself. A morally deficient, manipulative, self-centered douche-bag who happens to be hell bent on self-destruction, yet he always narrowly avoids it due to his disproportionate amounts of luck.

[rpgmaker]

I agree, they made Allan so pathetic. I also learned that Jon Cryer is an incredibly good comedy actor. Charlie wasn't really acting, he was just being himself but Allan was a real piece of depressing work.

[ajtaylor]

I felt exactly this way too. You know how you just cringe about something, knowing exactly how awful it's going to be or feel? That describes most of my reactions to Allan, and is part of the reason I quit watching. The other was that the raunchy factor seemed to know no lower bound. I finally reached a point where I couldn't take anymore and quit watching (around the time Ashton Kutcher came in).