New Camaro Makes TV Debut Online

BURBANK, California — Just as it did with its misbegotten Knight Rider remake, NBC has shown the first episode of the new series My Own Worst Enemy online a full week before it shows up on the broadcast network next Tuesday night. And My Own Worst Enemy features the new 2010 Chevrolet Camaro in its first television role. The episode is up on both NBC.com and the Hulu.com site, but why bother going over to either of those? Here's the whole thing embedded at good ol' Inside Line.What? You don't want to sit through the whole thing just to see the Camaro? In that case watch this one minute, 31 second clip that features the Camaro's single scene in its entirety. And the most exciting thing the car does (at least in this episode) is run a red light.Throw in a cameo from the new Chevrolet Traverse, and My Own Worst Enemy is as much a Chevy-centric show as the new Knight Rider is Ford dominated. But though both Enemy and Knight are built around ludicrous conceits — it's almost as difficult to believe Christian Slater is two different men in one body as it is to believe a Shelby GT500KR would have Val Kilmer's voice — the award here goes to GM for landing the better show on NBC.My Own Worst Enemy isn't great by a long shot, but it's filet mignon compared to the fetid slop in the Knight Rider pig trough. It's nicely shot, there's some interesting dialog, and what special effects it has aboard are subdued enough so that they don't distract from the story. Plus the always excellent Alfre Woodard is aboard as the leader of a top-secret government agency — sort of an American version of Dame Judi Dench's 'M' in the James Bond movies.As an actor, Slater doesn't seem to have the range to convincingly pull off the dual personalities gag, but he seems to truly revel in playing the secret agent side of the equation. When agent 'Edward' kills someone, he really seems to be enjoying it. Family man 'Henry,' on the other hand, is just Edward with a little less gel product in his hair and a pie hole that's constantly agape.As long as My Own Worst Enemy stays in the world of espionage and Edward, there's hope for this series. It's the Bourne movies with a lot less blood, suspense and action. The trick for the producers will be to make the suburban dad Henry at least somewhat interesting during those family man interludes while amping up the spy stuff on a TV series budget.Plus it's Edward who drives the Camaro. And it's better to see more of that than Henry's Traverse.Inside Line says: Not a bad way to blow an hour on Tuesday nights. Let's hope in future episodes that the Camaro doesn't do something stupid like turn into a submarine. — John Pearley Huffman, Correspondent