Rob Lowe to Replace Charlie Sheen on 'Two & A Half Men'?

Rob Lowe as a Charlie Sheen Replacement?

Chuck Lorre and Warner Bros. seem to be keen on resuming production of Two and a Half Men, even after firing Charlie Sheen (who responded by waving a machete on his roof). TMZ reports that mega-agents William Morris-Endeavor were approached about possibly using Rob Lowe to replace Charlie Sheen.

• Charlie Sheen: Feature Coverage
  

Warner Bros. has a pretty big incentive to carry on with Two and a Half Men, even if just to finish the season: those eight unshot episodes have already been sold into syndication (rough translation: 24/7 broadcast on Canadian television, as is currently the case with Men reruns).

Could a mid-series replacement actually work? Probably. After all, Charlie Sheen replaced Michael J. Fox in Spin City for its final season when Fox's Parkinsons left him unable to continue with the series. 8 Simple Rules for Dating My Teenage Daughter continued for another season after the death of John Ritter; nobody replaced him at all.

The bigger question is, where are all the Two and a Half Men fans? Men was the most successful sitcom in television after eight seasons, whose star is the highest-paid in the industry, yet there's no public pressure to bring the show back. Why not?

Are people only watching because Two and a Half Men is on when everyone is cooking dinner? The numbers don't lie, but the public apathy to the demise of the show seems strange. Contrast this with the outcry when Firefly got dropped by Fox.

As for Charlie Sheen, he professes to be happy to be free of Men, though it could be sour grapes:

As for the money (around $2 million per episode), Charlie Sheen will almost certainly sue Warner Bros. for wrongful termination at some point, probably as soon as the momentum from his web and TV-appearance antics dies down.