The omnipresent and not-at-all-tiresome Charlie Sheen has finally been fired from “Two and a Half Men.” I want to say this feels like it took forever, but then I remember it hasn’t even been two weeks since they shut the show down for the season after Sheen gave a particularly scornful radio interview (remember those halcyon days, before we knew that was only the beginning of his media blitz?). The instantaneous news cycle has its benefits and drawbacks, I suppose, because this entire saga feels like it’s eaten up a disproportionately large amount of time (it really hasn’t) and attention (it definitely has).

Why did they wait the two weeks? Presumably to see if, at any point, Sheen would pull back and enter rehab or start acting like a sane person. Additionally, the early days of Sheen’s media appearances and his early Tweeting were hugely popular. It wasn’t that what he was doing or saying made a goddamn lick of sense or that people were rallying behind him or anything, but he was saying and doing such cosmically bewildering nonsense (and SO much of it) that he drew in more attention, spawned memes and turned himself into a temporary pop icon. The executives at Warner Bros. and CBS knew that if they canned him at the apex of his public meltdown — if they fired him while he was still being booked on every show that would take him — it would result in a lot of negative attention aimed at them and their cash cow. Instead, they waited for the attention to abate a little (I mean, relatively) before firing him, giving the public a chance to cool on Sheen a bit. (After all, despite his Webcast and his repeated attempts at a new catchphrase, he hasn’t actually said anything meme-worthy since his initial torrent of crazy.) This was going to get attention no matter what, but it was a savvy move on their part.

For what it’s worth, Sheen seems to have misinterpreted his meteoric promotion to the forefront of the public consciousness. If we’re to believe his alleged “I’m Charlie Sheen, I’m more famous than Obama!” boasts, he probably thinks he’s been there all along, and he’s just now finally paying attention to it. There are signs he thinks this thing is bigger than it is. The way he refers to this attention as a “movement,” rather than a public spectacle being observed the same way we observe any celebrity meltdown, his belief his social media platform should be leveraged and his supposed desire to take his crazy act on the road all suggest that he seems to think of himself as akin to Conan O’Brien last year. Remember, Conan was unceremoniously booted from his show after a public fracas with the network, he took to Twitter and the Web and eventually the road, all in the process of becoming something of a public folk hero.

If he thinks of them as peers, Sheen is in for a surprise. There’s a big, big gap between the two situations. I don’t just say this because Conan is funny and great and was (relatively) screwed over by NBC, while Sheen is neither funny nor great nor particularly victimized by anyone but the voices in his head, but there is a huge gulf between the public perceptions of both men. Lord knows what Sheen intends to do if he does, in fact, go on tour (his Webcast basically consisted of him spewing crazy talk while enablers laughed at everything he said). He has no real skills, whereas Conan could, you know, tell jokes and play the guitar and not abuse women. And Conan could, eventually, head back to television. When the attention fades, Sheen will go back to being a tabloid fixation, and what else? He’ll get some movie roles, and his presence will provide a boost of attention for his first few projects, but notoriety can’t fuel success in film or television.

What of the show? Remember, the No. 1 comedy on television was not canceled yesterday. Sheen was presumed to be the franchise up until last year’s contract negotiations, so if they decided they were done with him, nobody could have been that surprised if they canned the whole enterprise when they decided to part ways with him. The fact that they didn’t end it yet means that they hope to wring a few more bucks out of the network’s golden goose. Obviously, there will be some financial issues here (Sheen’s absence could mean that the network’s licensing fee and the show’s rerun costs could be altered). They could hire some other actor (John Stamos is mentioned often for this) and see what happens next season. Even if the network were to have canceled it outright, it wasn’t like they would have suffered a total loss. This show was enormously expensive, and nearly any other sitcom could be plugged into that hole for lower costs; there would be smaller profits, but they wouldn’t be losing every penny they would have made had Sheen continued on the program. Continuing with the proven brand name gives them a chance to negotiate something in the middle, likely somewhere between a new show and the established megahit, to see if they can keep it going.

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Here’s the big question: If they recast the role, or if they ultimately do cancel or reschedule the show, what happens? I mean, do people really care about this goddamn thing? Lost in all of this is the fact that Sheen’s main calling card — the thing for which he is (ostensibly) best known, the thing for which he is handsomely compensated and the greatest success with which he has ever been associated — is this terrible, terrible show. It’s awful, but it’s enormously successful. Hell, the day Sheen got fired a rerun of the thing pulled down more than 10 million viewers (!).

As the terrific Drew Magary pointed out at Deadspin, if this is such a popular show, why don’t the viewers care about any of this? For instance, I watch the show “Chuck.” (If you have never watched it, it’s a fun show, give it a try if you are so inclined.) The show has been teetering on death’s door essentially since the pilot aired. But there are a lot of devoted fans, and they write letters and buy Subway subs and bombard the network, so now it’s 2011 and the damn thing is about to wrap up its fourth season, which is astonishing considering the minuscule audience and perpetual threat of cancellation. If I ever meet somebody who says the wrote a letter or bought a sub, I will give them a hug. I haven’t done any of those things. I like the show, but I don’t go out and expend effort to keep a show I like on the air. That goes against the entire reason I watch television: so I can be a sedentary wastrel contributing nothing to society and not leaving the couch unless absolutely necessary.

If there are fans, and apparently there are 10 to 15 million of them who reliably turn on this drivel each week, where the hell are they? Why aren’t they writing letters or organizing campaigns or calling the network or doing or saying something, anything, to show that they care about this show beyond a reliable way to easily kill 30 minutes on a Monday evening? I know, I know: this is not the kind of show likely to have devoted fans who will organize to support it, because (a) it’s not targeted towards the younger, energetic, nerdy demographic that campaigns for “Jericho” and whatever and (b) it’s actually already a hit, so they don’t actually need to care about it. I know that. But shouldn’t somebody, somewhere, be doing something? Hell, “Arrested Development” (a show worth saving, if there ever was one) debuted the same fall as “Two and a Half Men.” The former had weak ratings and was canceled three seasons later; the latter still has dominant ratings and is one of the biggest successes in the history of the medium (financially, not artistically; I just have to clarify that one more time, because I’ve tried watching “Men,” and it is excruciating). “Arrested Development” hasn’t aired a new episode in more than five years, and you still constantly hear about the show from all of the cast members who went on to do other interesting, varied things, and you know people who loved the show and always recommend it, and you hear about this never-gonna-happen movie, and you generally still hear about the show, even if you never watched it. Whereas “Two and a Half Men” is either on the verge of outright cancellation or a distinct reconfiguring, and have you heard a word about it? From anybody? People still know about “Arrested Development” because they still know fans who worship it, and if they haven’t watched it by now it’s just because they opted not to at this point, not because of a lack of awareness. All people know about “Two and a Half Men” is that Charlie Sheen likes cocaine and hookers and he was also on this CBS thing that a lot of people presumably watched.

Look, if a rerun of the thing pulls in 10 million viewers, and if years and years of Sheen’s well-documented violence towards women and his drug use and general dislikability haven’t put those viewers off, the people who tune into this thing would clearly watch if they took a reasonably upright broom, plopped it down on the couch and had it react (impassively) to some quip from the 35-year-old half-man of the title. So why bother recasting? Why bother even paying for new episodes? Me, I hope they just keep airing reruns, and see if anybody actually notices or cares. Seriously. At least then we’ll know if the people watching are actually watching, and we’ll find out if there are 15 million people willing to sit through anything. Which, based on this show’s success, seems pretty likely at this point.