Including Bobo, that would usually be enough

Having learned to mac eyelash curler control his own anger, Charlie now hosts group therapy sessions at his home with new patients, including, among others, a gay personal shopper (Michael Harden) who is given to fits of passive-aggression; an old cuss (Barry Corbin) trying to control his anti-Obama fits; and a pampered Daddy’s girl (Noureen DeWulf) who tried to shoot off her cheating boyfriend’s private parts. They all take turns punching Bobo the inflatable clown. Including Bobo, that would usually be enough characters for a sitcom, but “Anger Management” has quite possibly the largest cast I’ve ever encountered in a half-hour pilot episode: There is also Charlie’s ex-wife and teenage daughter mac eyeliner (Shawnee Smith; Daniela Bobadilla); Charlie’s favorite bartender (the much-missed Brett Butler); and a wisecracking next-door neighbor (Michael Boatman). And — as if they’re in a whole other show — there is a group of prisoners that Charlie also counsels. The prison seems like a more interesting place to set an FX sitcom starring Charlie Sheen, but maybe it makes Sheen too nervous for it to become the show’s permanent milieu. I have no idea why so many people are in one show, unless the producers are thinking like managers so they can later decide who and what to toss overboard, all the while repeating mac foundation the mantra: “10 episodes equals 90 . . . 10 episodes equals 90 . . . ”