‘Anger Management’ series finale airs tonight; was FX’s Charlie Sheen experiment okay?

A few years ago, it looked as though “Anger Management” was going to be a series with real promise for FX. Just consider the variables here for a minute. You had a show that was fronted by Charlie Sheen, who following “Two and a Half Men” was an enormous star with a cult following. You also had the promise of a 90-episode renewal if you met a certain ratings threshold.

Well, the series finale is airing on the network tonight, and we imagine at this point that this show is going to be limping its way out the door commercially. Its ratings are basically in oblivion, and all of FX’s other attempts at this 10 / 90 episode format have failed. It does not even look like the network is considering these shows anymore.

So what went wrong to stop the trend? The biggest fault of “Anger Management” is simply that the entire show felt rushed. Doing so many episodes so quickly meant that they were not as strong as they could have been, and many of the characters beyond Charlie’s own were pretty one-note. We do feel like Sheen is still a comedic talent, but it would be nice to see him play something at this point that does not just border on self-parody or hold so many similarities to things we have seen on the show already.

As for what comes next for Sheen, we hope that he does land a few guest-starring roles here or there, or maybe even take on a more serious part as a way to prove to people that he is a genuinely good actor.

For now, though, what is it that you are going to remember from the “Anger Management” run? Share with a comment below, and head over here to get some other updates on all we cover at CarterMatt via our official newsletter (Photo: FX.)