Dissociative My Own Worst Enemy Disorder

The pilot for NBC's My Own Worst Enemy is, if nothing else, very entertaining. The producers clearly sought to pump a decent budget into it, and the story is interesting enough not to collapse from the weight of its ridiculous premise. Also, Christian Slater is the lead actor.

Slater plays Edward Albright, a war-hero-turned-government-agent who has been participating in an experiment to create 'the perfect cover'. Basically, the agency taps into his brain (assumedly through a wireless transmitter) and 'wakes up' a dormant personality they created with a trajillion-dollar computer. When that happens, Edward Albright goes to sleep, and Henry Spivey, a boring family man, wakes up. The conflict arises when the programming malfunctions, causing Edward and Henry to wake up randomly, often at the most inopportune times.

The result is a combination of two formulas that studios have gotten behind since dinosaurs started experimenting with Super 8: misogynist government super-agents, and multiple personality disorder.

Incredibly, the cocktail works. What could have easily been a terrible Nicolas Cage movie (CAGE. CAGE. AND CAGE. If one doesn't kill him, one of the other two will) was instead given care as a pilot, opening windows of drama and character exploration that can't be accomplished with a gimmick plot in ninety minutes. Also, neither Slater nor the network seem to be riding this one out as a Christian Slater vehicle, which is good because he really is a better actor than Vin Diesel.

At the end of the pilot, I was slightly concerned about the series' future. In a way, it almost seemed like a trimmed-down backdoor pilot. I wouldn't be surprised to find out there's thirty minutes of unused footage sitting in an NBC vault somewhere, the difference between NBC's great new show and NBC's great original movie. The pilot played out well, but I felt uninformed as to how it would work as a series. The last thing I'd want to see is a multiple-personality-government-agent rendition of Sister, Sister.

Sister, Sister
Season (number) Episode (number)
Plot Synopsis

(Tia or Tamera) needs to meet up with (name of peer, love interest of authority figure), but needs a way out of it. (Tia or Tamera) decides to take her place in a scheme of witty deception, but it also means that (Tia or Tamera) will have to take her place at (work, school, family time). It works out well, until (name of peer, love interest or authority figure) discovers their intricate ruse, and a lesson is learned by all.

Imagine that, but with Christian Slater, guns and the plot of Me, Myself and Irene. Luckily, at the end of the pilot audiences were treated to a short preview of the series, as told through a Slater-tage of cool-looking clips and a narrator explaining what the show is about. Somehow, this put me at ease. If the preview is any indication, it seems My Own Worst Enemy may have a formula that could work for at least a season, maybe more (that didn't stop Prison Break from continuing long past its two-season lifespan, though). Check out the pilot if you can, and tune in for the next episode, Monday October 20, 10:00pm (NBC).

You can catch encores of the pilot on:

Wednesday, October 15, 12:00am (USA)
Friday, October 17, 7:00pm (Sci-Fi) and
Saturday, October 18, 9:00pm (NBC)