TV Tonight: Enemy Mine

NBC Photo: Mitchell Haaseth

NBC's drama / car commercial My Own Worst Enemy, starring Christian Slater, debuts tonight. Pro: The pilot was much better than I expected it would be. Con: I expected it would stink.

Deadlines on a couple non-review pieces kept me from doing a full-fledged review, so I hope to come back to this after a couple episodes once we know better what it is you were dealing with. If you read TV blogs, you probably know the premise: Slater plays Henry, a mild-mannered family man, who gradually comes to discover that he is also Edward, a deadly, amoral secret agent. His other personality has, for years, been having adventures while Henry has had blank spells; now, he's gradually becoming aware that his mind has been partitioned like a hard drive by the government, and his life—lives—is/are in danger as a result.

A few implausibilities here, as you might guess, and if you don't expect or care that the show resolves them, you may find the first hour a reasonably decent time. For instance: why even bother creating—apparently at some trouble and expense—a dual Edward/Henry, unless it was the work of a secret government whose job is to manufacture far-fetched TV premises? For another instance: how could anyone possibly not have noticed that Henry—again, a husband with kids—repeatedly goes missing? (There are some half-hearted explanations involving business trips and the fact that he doesn't sleep.)

Those are problems I can get past. I mean, I watched every season of Alias. But unlike in Alias, there is so far, no compelling throughline of a story to make me eager to come back. The show is all premise, no plot. Second—as I'd worried earlier—Slater is not the actor to pull off the transition between two radically different selves. He's believable enough as Edward, but as Henry—well, Slater does mannered better than mild-mannered.

On the bright side, the pilot is pretty well-paced and promises interesting interplay in the future between Henry and Edward (who communicates via videotape). But it'll have to generate a more interesting narrative to make me a weekly viewer. Is either half of you interested in watching? Are you of two minds?