My Own Worst Enemy
NBC | Release Date: October 13, 2008
CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
61
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 25 Critic Reviews
Positive:
13
Mixed:
9
Negative:
3
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
NewsdayVerne Gay
Season 1 Review: Far, far, far and away NBC's best new pilot of the season and one of the best new shows of the season, on any network -- commercial or cable. Read full review
90
Miami HeraldGlenn Garvin
Season 1 Review: My Own Worst Enemy is by far the best drama of the fall season, a bold and brainy spy thriller that practices a sort of armed existentialism. Read full review
75
Chicago Sun-TimesAndrew Herrmann
Season 1 Review: If you can buy into the fantasy, Slater delivers on his part of the deal, playing both characters with just enough unique quirks so viewers can tell them apart. Usually. Read full review
75
New York PostLinda Stasi
Season 1 Review: The action is pretty non-stop, the stars terrific and, if you're willing to do the work to follow the complicated plot, the show can be lots of fun. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterRay Richmond
Season 1 Review: My Own Worst Enemy holds our interest despite its utter preposterousness because if there is anything Slater knows how to do, it's present a believable head case. Read full review
70
Kansas City StarAaron Barnhart
Season 1 Review: Surprise! It’s not nearly as bad as I thought. Read full review
70
Pittsburgh Post-GazetteRob Owen
Season 1 Review: My Own Worst Enemy sets up what could be an overly complicated premise and miraculously makes it all seem perfectly acceptable and clear by the end of the first hour. Read full review
70
The New York TimesAlessandra Stanley
Season 1 Review: Worst Enemy has a convoluted premise that is cleverly wrought and holds up well, and Mr. Slater does a remarkable job of only subtly signaling each personality Read full review
70
Los Angeles TimesMary McNamara
Season 1 Review: [Christian] is in rare form here. Which is a good thing since the show's success or failure rests solely on his dramatic agility and general appeal. Read full review
70
SalonHeather Havrilesky
Season 1 Review: While you do have to wonder where the show will go from here, since it has the plot of a two-hour movie, not a 20-hour series, it has the benefit of being far more original and unpredictable than 90 percent of the new shows to hit the airwaves this fall. Read full review
70
L.A. WeeklyRobert Abele
Season 1 Review: The show’s biotechnological twist on the double life of spies--or any superhero/alter ego construct--certainly satisfies the popcorn-thriller needs of My Own Worst Enemy, but I wasn’t expecting it to be as thematically resonant as it was. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)John Leonard
Season 1 Review: Slater, whose career has gone pretty much downhill since "Heathers" (1989) and "Pump Up the Volume" (1990), is surprisingly perfect as both of them, adjusting not much more than the brow of an eye, the curl of a lip, and the hiss of a sibilant to indicate the seismic shift from James Bond to Willy Loman. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMaureen Ryan
Season 1 Review: The first episode of Enemy ended up being a relatively compelling hour of television. As competent as it is, though, it’s hard not to think that the premise contains some holes. Read full review
60
VarietyBrian Lowry
Season 1 Review: The pilot gingerly lays out most of the elements My Own Worst Enemy will need to survive--leaving it to the show to either make its strange case or live down to its name. Read full review
60
PopMattersMarisa LaScala
Season 1 Review: My Own Worst Enemy looks like it’s been assembled from the leftovers of other pop-culture heavyweights. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyKen Tucker
Season 1 Review: Slater plays out spy-story clichés that were campy on "The Man From U.N.C.L.E." 40 years ago. Read full review
50
SlateTroy Patterson
Season 1 Review: The show's success may depend on whether the public's fascination with Slater trumps its collective attention-deficit disorders. Read full review
50
Orlando SentinelHal Boedeker
Season 1 Review: The two halves don't add up to an engrossing whole. The show's worst enemy? The perplexing, cynical writing. Read full review
50
San Francisco ChronicleTim Goodman
Season 1 Review: Bad, then decent, then confusing. That's not exactly the trajectory you're looking for in a pilot. Read full review
50
Philadelphia Daily NewsEllen Gray
Season 1 Review: It's a subject that was explored more deeply, and even a touch more believably, in BBC America's "Jekyll," a nail-biter of an update in which James Nesbitt inhabited both personalities so completely they barely even looked alike. Slater, by contrast, just seems like a guy in need of a good night's sleep. Read full review
50
TV Guide MagazineMatt Roush
Season 1 Review: Reminiscent at times of "The Bourne Identity" or "Face/Off," to name a few movie influences it does not improve upon, the beyond-high-concept Enemy asks us to believe Christian Slater as a cold-blooded assassin named Edward who doubles, when a switch in his brain is flipped, as a milquetoast family man named Henry. Read full review
40
Philadelphia InquirerJonathan Storm
Season 1 Review: My Own Worst Enemy's worst enemy is all the murky mumbo-jumbo mechanics the writers have introduced to support their stupid split-personality thesis. Read full review
37
USA TodayRobert Bianco
Season 1 Review: You might be able to forgive the sloppiness of the premise if something else in the episode worked, but it's all a contrived, derivative mess. Read full review
30
Washington PostTom Shales
Season 1 Review: My Own Worst Enemy can be recommended only to people who can imagine themselves saying, "I'm in the mood for a mediocre version of a fairly good spy movie." Read full review
30
Newark Star-LedgerAlan Sepinwall
Season 1 Review: There isn't a series here; just the pitch meeting for a very expensive, very loud, very dopey action movie. Read full review
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