About a week ago, we were speculating on the question of whether Charlie Sheen's legal troubles would impact on 'Two and a Half Men's' future. Today, it was Charlie Sheen's personal problems that resulted in the show shutting down temporarily. Charlie Sheen has checked into rehab as a precautionary measure.

It's hard to see this as a precaution because for weeks now, Sheen's life has been spiraling out of control. The Aspen situation with wife Brooke Mueller, the felony charges and a relapse into substance abuse of some kind are all proof that, for now, Sheen is not able to continue with 'Two and a Half Men.'

According to The Wrap, shuttering 'Two and a Half Men' for some time could be a problem for CBS. The Monday night schedule hinges on 'Two and a Half Men,' and prolonged reruns when new episodes are airing all around the nine o'clock time slot could drag down the Nielsen numbers. Although considering how strong CBS remains on Monday, it would take more than some reruns to cripple CBS's comedy juggernaut.

(S04E03) "Not every geek with a Commodore 64 can hack into NASA." - Roland

I think we're already starting to see how much of this season of Prison Break is going to play out. A constant struggle for Scofield and his team to deliver while pressure from Don and his Homeland Security buddies continues to weigh them down. I doubt very much that this is the last time the threat of being shut down will be used. It wouldn't surprise me if there was a mention of it every week - we are talking about their freedom after all. With that in mind, get ready to hear something that I imagine I'll probably be typing a lot as I review this season: the hunt for the remaining Scylla cards continues!

Our favorite TV Guide scribe, Mike Ausiello, must have his moles working overtime this week (he should at least provide those moles with a free pizza or something; I'm sure they're all quite hungry); this week's "Ask Ausiello" has the usual set of scoops and spoilers (even one or two with those annoying asterisks he uses), but he also has this one tidbit about the best show no one's watching, Kidnapped:

According to Ausiello (look near the bottom of the page), the producers of the NBC serialized drama have been told to stop production after finishing the 13th episode. Considering they were shooting episode seven when I visited the set six weeks ago, that would mean that they are going to wrap up right... about... now. Anyway, there is an "early cancellation" contingency in place that will show the conclusion to the kidnapping mystery, so the writers won't leave whatever viewers they have left hanging like Reunion did last year. It's too bad; from everything I've seen, the show was one of the best of the fall season. But lack of promotion and a crappy time slot -- people didn't want to get started with this show when The Nine was coming two weeks later -- doomed Kidnapped from the start. Maybe NBC should just hold the show now and air all 13 episodes over the summer; I bet they'd get pretty good ratings then.

(UPDATE 10/5/06: Looks like the show is indeed done. Thanks for the link, dinges!)