We are about a third of the way through the season, so the merry gang at Crimespree thought it was a good time to take a look at where shows are.

Over the course of the next week or two, Lee, Gerald, Rev, Naomi and myself will offer up some thoughts on various shows.

Gerald is kicking things off with a look at My Own Worst Enemy, Chuck and Bones.

BONES’s third season, shortened by the writers’ strike, ended with the revelation of series regular Zack Addy (Eric Millegan) as a serial killer’s apprentice. Though Season 4 began promisingly with a 2-hour premiere shot on location in London, many subsequent episodes have seemed somewhat typical. A rotation of oddball interns has replaced Zack, giving the show a slightly different chemistry each week–not the best recipe for return-viewing. Thankfully Brennan and Booth’s back-and-forth–the main reason to watch–remains quite appealing.

NBC’s new show, MY OWN WORST ENEMY
(Mondays, 10:00 PM), stars Christian Slater as Edward Albright,highly trained covert operative–and Henry Spivey, mild-mannered efficiency expert–two personalities inhabiting the same body who begin to interfere in each other’s lives and work. As far as I can tell from the first few episodes, Edward works for Janus, a spy organization masquerading as the consulting firm A.J. Sun. Janus operatives are implanted with false memories (a la Total Recall), so their civilian identities at A.J. Sun function completely independently. Slater juggles both roles well, but it’s easy to lose track of who’s who in the company as a whole. Because of this,the show is often more confusing than engaging.

In its second season, NBC’s other spy
show, CHUCK, has stayed on the level of fluff. While I find it more watchable than MY OWN WORST ENEMY, its blend of workplace comedy and spy adventure sometimes doesn’t deliver enough of either. Aside from my FIREFLY loyalty to Adam Baldwin, I’m not particularly compelled to watch from one week to the next.

Gerald So