By Tim Cuprisin Media Columnist Published Sep 13, 2011 at 11:00 AM

It looks like Charlie Sheen is in desperate need of some attention.

He has his roast – which he's been hyping in Comedy Central promos – coming Monday night at 9. It's the same night that his old show comes back with Ashton Kutcher filling his spot in the cast.

Remember, he's pushing for you to tune in as an odd assortment of characters gather to ridicule him. If you've seen roasts, they're not very nice. And Sheen's weird behavior offers plenty of opportunities for ridicule.

The roast was recorded over the weekend, and EW.com was there for it, including host Seth MacFarlane's reference to a funeral for Sheen's character on "Two and a Half Men."

"You can just wait a couple months and see the real thing."

Funny or just plain sad? It's the same question you can ask about everything connected to the troubled Sheen.

He's still willing to talk to nearly anybody, including syndicated TV talker Wendy Williams, with their conversation airing at 10 a.m. Monday on Channel 6 – half a day before his big roast.

Don't be surprised is he's available for interviews with other second- and third-tier talk shows.

Here's a little preview of the Comedy Central roast:

 
 
www.comedycentral.com
     

Moving on at CBS: On the same night as Sheen's roast, CBS will start its new season of "Two and a Half Men" without Sheen, in what could be the season's biggest network sitcom episode, airing at 8 p.m. Monday on Channel 58.

The network has released its Sheen-less opening:

So long, to The Cool TV: Journal Broadcast Group is dropping "The Cool Network" from its digital sub-channel 4.3 (Channel 994 on Time Warner digital cable) after a financial dispute led to a lawsuit against the music video channel.

The digital sub-channel was tied promotionally to Journal Broadcast's WLWK-FM (94.5), known better to listeners as Lake FM.

Its replacement will be a new digital lifestyle channel called Live Well Network. It takes over the channel on Oct. 1, according to general manager Steve Wexler.

On TV: ABC's Diane Sawyer has landed the first interview with U.S. Rep Gabrielle Giffords since she was severely wounded in a shooting in January. While we're talking about Sawyer, her two-hour look at the newly released recorded interviews with Jacqueline Kennedy airs tonight at 8 on Channel 12.

  • NBC has named Brian Williams upcoming prime-time magazine show "Rock Center with Brian Williams." Somehow, I think it will have a new name before it premieres sometime this season.
  • TVGuide.com reports third season "American Idol" finalist Diana DeGarmo is joining CBS' "The Young and the Restless," playing the daughter of a mob boss.
  • The CW Network has a "Sex and the City" prequel in the works. Deadline.com reports it will be called "The Carrie Diaries" and have "Gossip Girl" executive producers behind it.

"The X Factor" is almost here: Fox has posted its eight-minute extended promo for Simon Cowell's "The X Factor," which premieres Sept. 21 At 7 p.m. on Channel 6.

Will this give Fox the ratings power of "American Idol"?

Tim Cuprisin Media Columnist

Tim Cuprisin is the media columnist for OnMilwaukee.com. He's been a journalist for 30 years, starting in 1979 as a police reporter at the old City News Bureau of Chicago, a legendary wire service that's the reputed source of the journalistic maxim "if your mother says she loves you, check it out." He spent a couple years in the mean streets of his native Chicago, and then moved on to the Green Bay Press-Gazette and USA Today, before coming to the Milwaukee Journal in 1986.

A general assignment reporter, Cuprisin traveled Eastern Europe on several projects, starting with a look at Poland after five years of martial law, and a tour of six countries in the region after the Berlin Wall opened and Communism fell. He spent six weeks traversing the lands of the former Yugoslavia in 1994, linking Milwaukee Serbs, Croats and Bosnians with their war-torn homeland.

In the fall of 1994, a lifetime of serious television viewing earned him a daily column in the Milwaukee Journal (and, later the Journal Sentinel) focusing on TV and radio. For 15 years, he has chronicled the changes rocking broadcasting, both nationally and in Milwaukee, an effort he continues at OnMilwaukee.com.

When he's not watching TV, Cuprisin enjoys tending to his vegetable garden in the backyard of his home in Whitefish Bay, cooking and traveling.