Poll: What do you think of ‘Two and a Half Men’ quitting the Emmy race?

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Warner Bros. execs confirm the news that ‘Two and a Half Men’ has not been submitted in the Emmy race for best TV comedy series, but they will not comment further.

It’s easy to guess why they chose to bench the show this year. If it gets nominated for best comedy series as it did three times in the past (2006-2008), that would be perceived as approval of star Charlie Sheen‘s antics behind the scenes. That would be hugely embarrassing to Warner Bros.

But does the studio have an unwritten obligation to submit the show and let the voters decide? After all, there are hundreds of other people who contribute to ‘Two and a Half Men’ besides Charlie Sheen. (One of them is even TV academy chairman John Shaffner, who is the series’ production designer.) They’re all still eligible to compete in their own peer-group categories. ‘Two and a Half Men’ scribes, for example, are still in the running for best comedy writing. But is it fair to remove the whole show from the comedy series contest just because of the shenanigans of one actor?

Arguably, the program’s producers just don’t believe the show was at its best this year, creatively speaking, so they don’t wish to enter it for that reason. In other words, this decision isn’t just a slap at Sheen but rather a realistic acknowledgment that the whole team wasn’t operating at peak form last year while battling embarrassing inner turmoil, so they’d like to sit out this year’s Emmy derby.

Or maybe this decision is a preemptive strike? Maybe producers pulled out because they knew they had no chance at being nominated in the top race after all the recent hubbub over Sheen?

— Tom O’Neil