Looks as if the Christian Slater career resurrection will have to wait for the next project. NBC has canceled My Own Worst Enemy. Despite an onslaught of promotion during the Summer Olympics, Enemy just never found the audience, despite its supposedly plum spot behind Heroes. Its most recent episode averaged only a 2.3 share or 5.2 million viewers.
In the bipolar spy actioner, Slater portrayed the dual roles of secret agent Edwart Albright and his cover alias of Henry Spivey, who had no knowledge of his double identity. Albright’s agency could switch the two personalities by way of a chip implanted in Edward’s brain. That same chip starts malfunctioning and Henry comes out at the most inopportune times. NBC ordered the standard thirteen episodes, but then announced that they would order no more. So far the show has produced a total of nine episodes, which will be its final run tally.
Although I didn’t bother with this show, I’ve always liked Slater and I hope this setback doesn’t slow him up too much. He has three films in the pipeline, including Lies & Illusions with Cuba Gooding, Jr., Dolan’s Cadillac with Emmanuelle Vaugier and Wes Bentley, and the animated Quantum Quest: A Cassini Space Odyssey with Sarah Michelle Gellar, John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson in 2010.
The rather quick cancellation of Enemy may not portend good things for the upcoming Dollhouse, the Joss Whedon / Eliza Dushku programmable agent drama set to premiere on Fox in January, which has already had its share of problems. But Dollhouse may benefit from the fact that Fox shows don’t usually need the numbers that NBC shows do in order to stay afloat. Lipstick Jungle is probably going to discover this fairly soon as well.
In the meantime, at least we still have Knight Rider goin…uh…strong…