Monday

The best and worst of the 2008 TV season

By Frank Pittarese

My Own Worst Enemy (NBC, 10 pm) stars Christian Slater as a guy with a split personality. One of them is a normal family dude. The other is a superspy. It's sort of like the Niki/Jessica thing on Heroes, except with (hopefully) better writing. Slater can be a bit of a ham, which might make this a fun watch—if the writers can mix in some dark humor with the spies and the killing and the soccer practice. Having seen the pilot, though, I don't think it'll be a fun watch.

Worst Week (CBS, 9:30 pm) seems to be about a guy who wears a diaper made out of a trash bag. At least that's the impression I got from the ads. All summer long, that was the only clip CBS cared to put in the commercial. The subway and bus ads? Same deal. I thought, if that's the only gag they've got that's worth selling, then this is a show I can avoid. That said, it's getting good buzz. Worst Week is adapted from a British series (before you start whining about how those never work, I'd like to enter The Office into evidence), and is about...well, did you ever see the movie Meet the Parents? That's what it's about.

Prediction: Christian Slater might be the only thing to help My Own Worst Enemy meet a different fate than NBC's genre failures Surface, Journeyman, or Bionic Woman. But I doubt it. Chuck, airing on the same network just two hours earlier, has the spy genre covered, and after being worn down by an hour of Heroes, viewers might want, or rather, need, to step away from their sets and breathe. Also, the show just isn't very good. Still, My Own Worst Enemy should survive for nine to thirteen weeks. Anything beyond that is luck. Worst Week, however, might have legs. CBS has been very successful in developing and maintaining their Monday night comedy lineup. Worst Week airs after three established sitcom hits and before CSI: Man in Sunglasses. Unless it's a train wreck, it will stick around.

Recommendations: Watch Chuck (NBC, 8 pm) because it is awesome. The cast is terrific. It hits all the right notes. It's funny most of the time, thrilling a great deal of the time, and touching some of the time. If terrible continuity, repetitive storylines, and random, illogical character behavior is your bag, Heroes (NBC, 9 pm) is still an option. As "smart TV" it fails, but as bubblegum, it excels. People have powers and they use them. Constantly. It's good like that. Terminator: The Sarah Conner Chronicles (Fox, 8 pm) is limping its way to termination, but might be worth an occasional viewing, if only for Summer Glau's tongue-in-cheek performance as the glitchy Terminator Cameron. Prison Break (Fox, 9 pm) is still airing and is more ridiculous than ever (wonderfully so). Unfortunately, if you've never seen the show, it's impenetrable, but I'm still amazed at the way this series never slacks off and is always finding new ways to throw the viewers off balance. For those of you who enjoy C-listers, Has-Beens, and the elderly wearing circus clothes and foxtrotting to wedding bands, then I highly recommend Dancing With the Stars (ABC, 8 pm).