Episode: “Breakdown” – Series Premiere (Season 1)
Premiere Date: Monday, October 13th, 2008
Rating: 3.0 out of 4 Stars
Quick Synopsis:
Long Synopsis: A man with a wife and kids that works as an efficiency expert, has an alter ego that is a highly trained secret government agent who speaks 13 languages. He has no recollection of any of his missions, until during one he switches from the agent back to the family man. This leads to some potentially serious consequences.
Review: My Own Worst Enemy is very good. It has action, a little humor and some interesting characters. Two of those characters just happen to be played by one person.
Christian Slater (Mindhunters, Broken Arrow) is outstanding in the dual role of super agent Edward Albright and family man Henry Spivey. These two characters couldn’t be more different and he plays them both very well. He even has to switch mid scene on occasion. This also means that he is in pretty much every scene as one of them and that is a lot of work for one actor to take on.
Am always a little worried when you hear about shows recasting roles late in the game, but things seemed to have worked out well here. Madchen Amick (Gossip Girl, Freddie) is good as Henry’s wife Angie. Alfre Woodard (Desperate Housewives) plays Mavis Heller and is solid, as always, as the head of the secret project. Other faces you will recognize are Saffron Burrows (Boston Legal) as Henry’s therapist and Mike O’Malley (Yes, Dear) as a fellow agent.
The story arc of the first episode makes for a great introduction of the characters, especially Edward and Henry. But, it did leave me with some questions about why all this is taking place. They explain what has happened, but I was still left wondering. I don’t really want to say anymore, cause I don’t want to spoil anything. Maybe it will be explained in future episodes, but it seemed like it should have been addressed in the opener.
Action and humor wise, it looks like it’s going to be a lot of fun, especially with the added tweak of the one character with two personas. The action is well done and it has some great comic moments to break things up.
Overall, My Own Worst Enemy is the best bet in the third hour of primetime on Monday nights. Its network competition is ABC’s Boston Legal and CBS’ CSI: Miami. Over on cable is TNT’s Raising the Bar. Enemy is better than all of them. I really enjoyed the episode and am looking forward to more.
My Own Worst Enemy premieres tonight, Monday, October 13th on NBC.
I loved the show. Lots of stuff going on, so kind of confusing at times but the ending was absolutely fantastic. I will definitely be watching more. I loved the cast and of course, I’ve had a huge crush on Christian Slater since Untamed Heart when I was a teenager. *laugh*
Jenny, I really liked it too and now that it has aired, I can say what it was that left me wondering. I didn’t quite understand why he needed to have this done to protect his cover and everyone else, his friend and his assistant, at the fake office both know what is really going on.
So as to protect future cover maybe? Dunno. heh