My Own Worst Enemy: Breakdown [series premiere]
By fred | October 14, 2008
(S01E01) Have you ever heard of Dr Jekyll and Mister Hyde ? Of course you have, it’s a very well-known story, and that’s exactly why it was chosen by NBC as premise for their latest new series, My Own Worst Enemy. Unfortunately, that’s about exactly how this originate, Ben Silverman had one of his “brilliant” idea, basically to list “the most engaging stories ever told” and just make TV shows out of them.
So here we are, with Christian Slater starring as the two main characters of the show trapped inside one man’s body : Edward, the cool kick-ass spy with no moral, and Henry, your average Joe with a boring office work, a wife and two kids. But they are one and the same, and while Edward was the only one to know about this unusual situation, this all changed during the first installment of the show.
And yes, it sounds like a pretty cool idea. And it is one.
It really is, only not for a TV show. The problem is that while the idea might sound cool and could make for some fun entertainment for a two-hour movie, you can’t really spread it for any longer than that, and so this will either go very serialized and become utterly boring because you can’t go one for months and months over this simple idea, far from it, or it will go the other way, a pretty boring procedural which will have lost all of its appeal if that’s not already done.
Sure, there are other shows out there with plots that don’t always make sense, and if you stop for one second and look at what’s happening you realize none of it makes any sense. But that’s exactly why you have Jack Bauer running all the time, shooting and killing and torturing all day long, because the minute he stops, the minute we think about it, it doesn’t make sense.
Unfortunately, My Own Worst Enemy allows for us plenty of time to think about what’s going in during the show, and it doesn’t take much to see how ludicrous this whole thing is. There’s the fact that the premise is completely unbelievable, despite what they might claim… “Brainwashing is something they do in the movies, Henry. We manifested a divergent identity dormant in a sealed-off portion of the medial temporal lobe, creating a split personality.”
That how the situation is explained to Henry, and to us, by Edward’s boss. Problem is, I think brainwashing makes a dozen times more sense than any of that scientific-sounding gibberish. But then, there’s the killer : “Henry Spivey was born 19 years ago, right here in this facility. We didn’t experiment on your Henry, you are the experiment.”
I’m sorry, but that’s completely retarded! I can see some secret organization or whoever those people actually are, since no answers whatsoever are ever given during this episode, taking ordinary people and implementing in them a split personality, the one of a killer, a soldier who speaks all the languages of the world, doesn’t discuss orders, and knows Kung Fu. But why in the world would you take that perfect soldier, and implement in him another personality, one of a boring average Joe with wife and kids ?
One who can’t defend himself should he ever have to, and could be a way for enemies to access your precious soldier. And how come is it that no one ever wondered about his so long and repeated absence ? There’s mention of business trips, but that’s not enough. Plus, for an agent like that, it’s often for long periods of time you need to go away, and I would assume you often gets punched in the face or get too close from an explosion, anything more noticeable or less easily explainable than a little cut while shaving.
And by the way, if those guys are so obsessed over such details and make sure to always get everything matching and adjusting Henry’s dreams/memories, how is it possible that they left a full box of matches in his pocket??
None of this make any sense. The wife and kids are real and not part of the program, this isn’t The Truman Show, so that also means they had to let this Henry guy meet someone and get married, have an actual life, all for what ?? So that for the few hours at night he’s off duty, Edward doesn’t sit at home alone watching a game having a beer ??
The show is all premise, no plot. It’s based on an idea of nothing, and it hasn’t been developed into a concept for a TV show. And it doesn’t even matter what crazy thing writers will come up to explain this mess, because as soon as Henry knows about it, about Edward, as he clearly does now, then why continue ? There isn’t a series there, there might be a movie, with work, but nothing more.
Adding to that the fact that there’s so little differences between Slater’s Edward and his Henry that it’s pretty much impossible to distinguish the two, and that kinda defeats the whole purpose of the Jekyll & Hyde concept.
I don’t see this going anywhere or being any good, what about you ? Did you enjoy the episode ? Do you really believe this could grow into a viable series ? Were the cars shinny enough ? Are you interested in finding out more about any of this ?
Posted in Reviews
Shows: My Own Worst Enemy
i cant believe NBC is so stupid to get rid of one of the best shows ever!! i am outraged by it this show was soo good and really kept you on the edge and NBC thinks it needs to go, i mean come on. and what is even more irateing is you the fact that you would end the series with the fact that no one will ever know who wanted edward and henrey to stay broken. i mean how could you do that. it is so unbelieve able and eritating i never want to watch NBC again.