This week’s weekly TV report from April 30th, 2009 chats a little about Chuck’s sandwich run, the probable return of Fringe, a new character for Burn Notice and how Harper’s Island is not only sinking, but moving – much like the island on Lost!  We’ve also got some syndication news on My Own Worst Enemy, Knight Rider and Dollhouse.  Yep, syndication news on Dollhouse.  That can’t be good.  Read on folks!

Chuck Takes Fans To Subway

Though they feel they’re currently on the good side of the ratings / cancel bubble, the cast of Chuck are still trying to take care of their sponsors.

While the cast was attending a Starfury convention T1 event in Birmingham, U.K., a fan suggested they try to help the show by supporting a sponsor, in this case, Subway. Zachary Levi and Adam Baldwin (who else would have done this?) then asked those in attendance if they’d follow them to a local Subway. Sure enough, they ended up leading about 400 convention attendees to the poor beleaguered sandwich shop. That would have sucked to be the guy behind the counter when this unruly gang showed up!

Zachary even got behind the counter and helped out until the very last customer was taken care of. Some headlines said they treated the fans, but I think they meant treated fans to their company.  Not treated as in buying them sandwiches.

Now we wait and see if Chuck gets renewed. But we need to keep something in mind: because NBC is cutting hours out of the prime-time schedule to make room for Jay Leno’s show, it’s hard to say what show is safe and not safe.  We can only hope for Chuck to make the grade.

Source: End Of Show

Fringe Will Probably Be Back

If J.J. Abrams has anything to say about it, Fringe will be back for a second season. In fact he said so! No, there’s no official word, but he’s talking as if he knows something, so there’s that. As it stands, he says they have some pretty dynamic stuff in store for a second season.

On an interesting note, Abrams admitted that he has very little to do ABC’s Lost at this point in time and that it’s all Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse and Jack Bender who are doing a spectacular job.

Sidenote: Though Fox will air 22 episodes of Fringe, they’ve shot 23, because Fox originally bought 23 episodes. We can expect the see the 23rd episode next season.  Does this almost sound familiar or what (the mysterious Dollhouse 13th episode)?

Fringe season 1 finale is on May 12th.

Source: Sci Fi WIre

Dollhouse, Knight Rider and My Own Worst Enemy to Sci-Fi

It’s being reported that Dollhouse, Knight Rider and My Own Worst Enemy are all headed to syndication mode over on the Sci-Fi Channel.  But before anyone gets their hopes up, it’s the Sci-Fi in the UK, so UK readers rejoice.

To be honest, when Sci-Fi picks up another network show, that is because it has usually gone into repeat mode and it won’t have any new episodes.

I wonder if Fox letting Sci-Fi get the rights for UK distribution of Dollhouse is some kind of death knell for the Joss Whedon project?  Typical… welcome to Friday, say goodnight Gracie.

Source:  Digital Spy, Digital Spy,

Burn Notice Gets A New Character

The cast of Burn Notice got a new character whose name is Tom Strickler. He’s a smooth talking freelance spy broker who says he has the ability to cancel Michael’s burn notice.

Strickler will be played by Ben Shenkman and is slated for at least 4 episodes and he will show up in mid-season.

Burn Notice is slated to return for its 3rd season in mid-June.

PS: Don’t forget, not only are we getting a 3rd season, but USA Network (NBC Owned) had renewed the show for 2 seasons, so we have a 4th season coming next year!

Source: Entertainment Weekly

Harper’s Island Moved to Saturday Nights

Ratings aren’t backing up the weekly escapades of a frenzied mystery killer on Harper’s Island. Because no one is buying into it, the show is getting pushed to the second-worst night of the week and that’s Saturday (seeing as how Fox has Friday night all squared away and all).

But CBS is quick to point out that the 7-day playback ratings are good outside Harper’s Island’s Thursday night air time. Are those studio execs good at attempted spin, or what? The last pick-up truck I rolled and destroyed, the radio still worked!  See?  I could work for CBS.

Starting May 2nd, Harper’s Island will be on at 9PM and will be the lead-in for 48 Hours Mystery on CBS.

Source: CBS Press

ABC’s Renewed Shows

ABC has announced their list of shows that are coming back next year. To be thorough, I’m adding everything, though I cringe at some of it.

The shows renewed for the 2009 – 2010 season are:

Lost, Ugly Betty and others. Oh… I said thorough, didn’t I? They’ll also be bringing back America’s Funniest Home Videos, The Bachelor, (Because on-air break ups are all the rage these days.) Brothers & Sisters, Dancing with the Stars, Desperate Housewives, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, Supernanny, and Wife Swap. (I can’t help but think interesting thoughts with that last show title. Sorry.)

Source: ABC

Is Fox Making A Political Statement?

On Wednesday, Fox Broadcasting Company did not air President Obama’s Wednesday nights news conference. They’re opted to air Lie To Me and their bread winning reality show, the results episode of American Idol.

It was an interesting bit of gamble and social statement and sadly, the social statement was surprising as ratings between the shows were comparably even.

Wow – reality TV trumps the President.  But then, it is Fox.  (Note: The CW never breaks for presidential telecasts.)

Source: TV Guide, E Online

Weekly Ratings Reported

The usual shows sat in the top 10 slots yet again. CSI stayed strong. Last week the repeat (R) of Criminal Minds sat in 19th and the new episode popped into 6th.

NCIS held on to a top 10 spot, though this week’s the episode introduced it’s cast / team for it’s new spin-off show. Did anyone catch it? What did you think. I’m betting it’s in the top 5 in next week’s chart.

Lost lost it and dropped to 43rd from last week’s 28th spot. I think people are getting tired of non-linear stories.  But this weeks episode was pretty decent in my opinion…  oh, they stayed fairly linear this week.  Sort of.

Castle popped up 8 spots to 32nd while Southland surprisingly faded from 25 to 34th. Harper’s Island keeps sliding down the chart, now sitting in 41st, while Heroes slid down to 49th. What is up with that?

Chuck held steady, while Smallville moved up from 83rd to 75th. Supernatural held fast while Dollhouse and Prison Break are still suffering the Friday night slot.

Look for your favorite show in the list below and tell us your thoughts on the different issues at hand here this week!

• TV Renewal And Cancellation Notes To Date
• Weekly TV Wrap Up – June 25, 2009
• Weekly TV Wrap Up – May 21st, 2009
• Weekly TV Wrap Up – May 7th 2009
• Weekly TV Wrap Up – March 19th, 2009
• Weekly TV Update – April 23rd, 2009

I’ve been following My Own Worst Enemy starring Christian Slater since it started.

I really enjoyed it and I found it well written. It intertwined an evolving storyline over a number of episodes that was interlaced with good, old fashioned drama, character tension and one heck of an underlying humor theme between the two personalities the Slater played.

Apparently the complicated theme was too much for viewers – as the ratings were just plain trash from day one and NBC has canceled the show.

Christian Slater played a spy who had a brain chip implant that switched personalities between the No. 1 spy in the agency and his cover, a family man. I found it a confusing premise because I thought there were better ways to have a spy lay low, besides having himself turned off and then risk exposure by raising a family.

The chip breaks and they have no control over when either one would show up. Now in my book, sending your best top-notch spy into action when he could revert to a know nothing family-man is stupid. I admit it. There. I do have a practical perspective.

What I did find engaging was the family-man personality, Henry Spivey, once he understood the situation, struggling to cope with the fact that he is a manufactured personality that never really existed except in the chip. As he tries to deal with this situation, he fights to take control of the life he thinks he knows. But spy-master Edward Albright quietly discovers the deeds that Henry pulls off and thwarts him at every turn.

It’s the master battle of siblings, within the same body!

The humor I found entertaining was the way they took shots at each other:
-Henry broke his own finger to try and keep Edward from going on missions. Edward got even by not taking pain meds.
-Henry give Edwards favorite watch away in a deal. Edward gets it back, and messed with something of Henry’s.

It was this constant subterfuge of little things that kept some levity to the show.

The funniest part was when Edward would spend “quality” time with his (Henry’s) wife. The next morning, Henry would find his wife extra lovey and ask him why he never did the hummingbird before? After a moments thought, he understood and wasn’t happy. After that, on and off Henry would wake up, look under the sheets, and cuss.

Yet they could work together and Henry was catching on to the spy game, so there was a good balance of teamwork and angst.

Though I really enjoyed the show, realistically I didn’t think it was going to last. This show HAD to have been followed from the onset to understand the complicated story line or you’d never get it. And that is why, IMHO, the ratings have floundered every week and Enemy has been canceled. I felt the writing and character development were on par with Journeyman, but the subject was just too plain convoluted and doomed to failure. The Nielsen families just wanted to go home and relax. Not have to wrap their minds around an intricate story line. It probably didn’t help that the show followed the floundering epic tale of confusion called Heroes either, and people could only take so much convolution in one night.

If they had dropped the malfunctioning chip crap and just had Henry, as himself, dealing with Edward’s enemies if they had discovered his home life, it just may have been a doable, more understandable story line. I applaud the original idea, but they needed to make it simpler. Just one man dealing with his cover and his job. Instead, they kept adding other split-chip personality agents to the storyline and I was getting confused of and on despite being on-board from day one.

In days gone past, if a show was floundering, they’d inject a hot looking character in the story and hope that would work. It was always my warning bell when this happened to shows I liked. But in this economy, sponsors and advertisers are acting more swiftly to recoup their monies when and where they can.

Oh well. I know some of you are probably happy that Slater will be out of your hair, but I enjoyed Slater in this temporary role and hope something else comes along. He brings an intensity to the screen that I enjoy.

They are going to wrap filming their 9th episode, and write off the other 4 of the 13 episodes they had ordered. I think NBC should stick to the commitment and really go out with a bang instead, but that’s just my take.

I’m bummed and I don’t think any mass campaign to save the show would work,  Besides, what would we do?  Mail them thousands of old memory chips from our old computers?

Sorry about the crummy news, Slater fans.

Source: TV Guide

• Edward Cullen Could Have Been Oh So Different
• Weekly TV Wrap Up – April 30th, 2009
• WonderCon 2009 – The Sarah Connor Chronicles Panel
• TNT Picks Up ‘Southland’
• Primeval Gets New Life
• Upcoming Eureka Episode To Be Directed By Joe Morton

Thumbs up, gang. In my humble opinion My Own Worst Enemy is going to work out just fine.

Christian Slater fans are going to be happy as he plays Edward/Henry. We get to watch him stretch his acting muscles as he portrays different, yet not so different, people. For folks who don’t know Slater, they will probably become fans as well.

Edward Albright is the operative spy/secret agent who can speak 19 languages and hold his breath for 5 minutes. Henry Spivey is the mild mannered business alter-ego who is activated when Edward is not on assignment. A place to hide. An experiment if you will.

His boss is Mavis Heller, played by Alfre Woodard. Raymond Carter, Henward’s co-worker, is played by Mike O’Malley. (Yes, I just called Christian’s character Henward. What of it? It helps me sort it out, sort of.)

The only problem I think the show might have is the complication of keeping track of who’s who. When is he Edward, when is he Henry. My trick for remembering who’s who is E for Edward, excellent spy action. H for Henry, Humble family man. But I still got lost for bits at a time watching Henward, which distracted me from the show a bit, but I was pulled along nicely.

The story is engaging and I got through to the end not too confused, but I really had to pay attention at times and I’m still trying to figure out if the family man works at a real company, or a front for Edwards HQ’s.

Thumbs up all around and this show is going on my list of ones to watch every week. The fact that it’s lined up behind Heroes on NBC is probably good for both shows. Possibly. Depending on how the ratings pan out for Heroes. Regardless, they’ve tactically placed My Own Worst Enemy in a good spot, and at a good time so we can see more of the brutality of the spy world than we can at the 8 o’clock hour.

SPOILER WARNINGS: The rest of this article is a SPOILER on the premiere episode of My Own Worst Enemy. So I deliver two warnings:

For those of you who have DVR’d it, BEWARE, as always and tread at your own expense. Once you’ve watched it, come on back and chime in if you want. For the rest of you, you must read slowly and try not to be confused because I have to switch about who I talk about and I lost me for a minute while watching and writing… I also have to use a lot of quotes. You’ll see. With that said, Bob will now write the rest of this article. (No, there’s no Bob… that was a funny based on the Slater role… sheesh.)

My Own Worst Enemy opens with Christian Slater, as Edward, meeting a female spy in France… in the biblical sense! We find out he really doesn’t like to sleep and hence, is an insomniac.

Though they seem to be on “good” terms, she ends up trying to kill him, but he’s prepared and kills her instead. Edward reports in to the main office, ie: Headquarters, gets in trouble for offing the other agent he was supposed to bring in.

As Edward leaves the “office”, his programing handler feeds him some background information on his missing time as Henry, and before he gets off the elevator, Edward is gone, and Henry, the businessman, steps out.

Our first hint at issues is when Henry is talking to his shrink about his dreams. Dreams that seem to be of the missions Edward goes on.

He goes home to the “family”. A wife (Angie Spivey, played by Madchen Amick), 2 kids, and a dog. Most classic. How cute. But later that night, something goes wrong. It looks like Edward just “woke” up and calls the “office” asking what’s up?

The next day, Edward goes to Moscow on his next assignment. Job: Sniper. Right in the middle of his assignment, Henry wakes up and accidentally pulls the trigger. All hell breaks out and the Russians catch Edw… I mean Henry. Henry gets rescued and his rescuer turns out to be his co-worker, Tom… er, well, Tom at the office. On missions, his name is Raymond. Yes, he’s another dual minded agent. So that’s two actors playing four parts.

It’s at this point that Henry is told by HQ that he’s an installed split personality and that’s he’s just an experiment, a cover. He’s rather shocked.

And that’s how we are introduced to his predicament, and the basis for the show. Right now, I can’t help but suspect that his wife and kids are part of the setup too. But I’m waiting to find that out one way or the other.

Henry is put up at Edwards “pad” while he’s still supposed to be away on business and gives him time to absorb all this new information. He drinks a bit, he watches a wall sized TV and accidentally finds Edwards secret room full of weapons and mementos. Even though Henry is a meek businessman, he’s got the curiosity necessary to deal with this and other scenarios… to a point.

Its this room that he finds Edwards past. Info about dead parents, the medal of honor Edward got. But while he’s exploring his alter-ego’s life, HQ’s has decided to erase Henry. There’s too much at risk.

Unknowing of their decision, Henry takes the car he found in Edwards garage and heads home. Edward wakes up while Henry is out driving and goes “home”, to Henry’s place. He gets home and Edward scores on Henry’s wife. Nasty boy, but she does seem hot, what little we’ve seen of her. Then in the morning, Henry wakes up. The wife is rather giddy, if you know what I mean, and Henry finds a note scribbled on his hand to not ever take his car again. LOL. Oh no… the siblings start to fight and Henry also realizes what happened between Edward and his wife.

Henry is now in a big white room and they are looking to erase Henry. I think. I just got lost. It’s Henry… But I thought they were going to erase Henry, but Henry does not go away. I’m not sure if something went wrong, a detail overlooked or I missed something in the story. Like I said, I got confused.

After Henry gets home from the all white room, the Russian Mobster that he tried to blow up is at the door. I think the Russian is starting to understand the Henry / Edwards scenario. They drive him to the desert where his GPS unit says he was yesterday, to dig up a briefcase and Henry ends up blowing up the bad guys.

It turns out that Henry was warned by a video message left by Edward about what was about to come down and given instructions on what to do, and Henry pulls it off well… I wasn’t sure who was offing the Russians, Henry or Edward. Yep, Henward!

Now Henry is back at his shrinks, trying to explain away some of his issues that he had previously brought up. He’s covering up his duality.

At this point, since the chip in his head has gone hay wire, the two personalities start to work together. They’re communicating via video messages and it will be interesting, that’s for sure. At this point, Henry has proven himself to not be useless, looking to convince HQ’s to not erase him. So far, so good.

I like the show. I think they’ve pulled off an interesting concept and didn’t go overboard, keeping it believable enough to not be tripped up with any writing inconsistencies. The few “oops” moments that confused me were quickly left behind with the momentum of the story and how it developed. And regardless, at least now I know who’s who. That is if I quit making up my own names for the characters, further complicating the show for myself.

For anyone who’s watched the show with me, were you confused, or did you follow along OK? Let us know what you thought. We’d like to hear from you.

• Weekly TV Wrap Up – April 30th, 2009
• WonderCon 2009 – The Sarah Connor Chronicles Panel
• Edward Cullen Could Have Been Oh So Different
• Can Heroes Redeem Itself From a Ratings Landslide?
• Heroes: One Shall Soon Fall [Updated]
• Dollhouse Season 2 Premiere – Ratings & Discussion

Tonight marks the debut of a latecomer to the Fall 2008 TV season: My Own Worst Enemy. Back in August we gave you the full rundown on the new series, which stars Christian Slater. Basically it seems to be like a TV version of the Arnold Schwarzenneger movie True Lies, but played less for laughs or over the top adventure, and more for reality (well as close to reality as you can get with this sort of thing).

Christian Slater was a rising star in the late 80s/early 90s with roles in films like Heathers, Young Guns II and later, Broken Arrow. Now I’m not big on following celebrities off camera lives, so I don’t know if he’s had personal issues that interrupted his career of if he just fell out of favor. Slater has continued working, but it just hasn’t really been in anything terribly high profile.

Personally, I like his screen presence so I hope this show is good and that it helps get him back into the limelight. So far the reviews for the show (I haven’t seen it yet as of the writing of this post) have been medium to very good, but everyone seems to agree that Slater is great in the dual-personality role.

I’ll be checking the premiere/pilot out tonight and I’m sure either TV hound Bruce or myself here on Screen Rant will be giving you the thumbs up or down.

My Own Worst Enemy premieres tonight, October 13 on NBC.

• Weekly TV Wrap Up – April 30th, 2009
• Bruckheimer Pilot Coming To NBC
• ABC To Market ‘V’ In The Sky [Updated]
• TV News & Notes: Medium, Jay Leno & More
• Another New Show For Bruckheimer
• Marc Guggenheim Leaving FlashForward

My Own Worst Enemy is about a man. Actually two men–well, one man, two personalities, er, well, you’ll see.

Christian Slater plays a man plagued by an interesting problem: by day he’s Henry Spivey, an efficiency expert who lives in the suburbs with a wife (Yara Martinez) and the obligatory 2 children and a dog. His other personality is that of Edward Albright, a super-spy operative of the Janus Headquarters who speaks 9 languages, can run a 4 minute mile and is a trained killer.

The division between the two alter egos starts to break down when a chip implant in his brain malfunctions. The two different personalities start finding themselves fighting for control of the one body they inhabit.

I like Christian Slater. He brings an energy to the roles he plays that just agrees with me. He’s got the perfect steely glare that cuts to the chase as an operative. Watching him play a suburban husband is going to be a twist. Watching him play two completely different personalities is also going to be pretty interesting.

Even NBC’s My Own Worst Enemy website has fun playing up the dual identity theme. If you click on Edward, you get a preview of the show and it’s basic premise. If you click on Henry, the preview shows him opening up a video message left for him by Edward. You watch Henry getting confused and panicky as Edward tells him there are men coming to kill him. Edward says that he needs to listen very carefully, his life depends on it.

Because I like Slater and the previews look pretty interesting, for now I plan on tuning in.

My Own Worst Enemy is brought to us by executive producer Jason Smilovic, (this worries me a bit since he was the producer and writer for NBC’s failed Bionic Woman, and before that, Kidnapped,) and is directed by David Semel. It looks like he has a sporadic background of single episodes in his past. This will be his longest running job. He’s produced the The Cleaner’s only episode, Life, Six Degrees, Studio 60 and “Chapter One Genesis” of Heroes.

There’s a report floating around that the co-executive producer of My Own Worst Enemy, John Eisendrath, is possibly going to be put in the position of executive producer/show runner. Eisendrath was consulting producer of K-Ville. I really thought that was a good, gritty cop show based in post Katrina New Orleans, but it was ill-fated to be chopped. (You’ll never guess what network it was on: Fox.) Eisendrath was also the executive producer of Alias. (Now we’re talkin’!)

The cast of My Own Worst Enemy consists of:
Christian Slater as Henry Spivey/Edward Albright
Saffron Burrows as Dr. Norah Skinner
Madchen Amick as Angie Spivey
Mike O’Malley as Tom Grady/Raymond
Alfre Woodard as Mavis Heller

I’m still a little worried. Should I be? I guess I’ll toss out one of my own favorite sayings: “Time will be the telling factor”. OK, onward with some enthusiasm: If one remembers their classic books, is it coincidental that Henry and Edward are also the first names of Dr. Henry Jekyll / Mr. Edward Hyde?

And another quick quiz: Does anyone else think of the planet Mars when you read the show outline in this article? If no one gets the reference, I’ll fill you in a bit later in the comments!

Regardless, I look forward to watching the 13 ordered episodes on NBC and hopefully it will last.

My Own Worst Enemy starts on Monday, October 13th at 10 PM. (Yes, the ill-fated Monday at 10 time slot that killed Journeyman, if I’m not mistaken.)

Sources: NBC, Hollywood Insider, IGN

• Weekly TV Wrap Up – April 30th, 2009
• Law & Order: CI Cast Change Up
• Fox’s ‘Human Target’ – Trailer And Discussion
• Edward Cullen Could Have Been Oh So Different
• Upcoming Eureka Episode To Be Directed By Joe Morton
• TNT Picks Up ‘Southland’