I'll give it an Average, but it has the potential to do much better.
On the plus side, Christian Slater is the reason this works. I really bought the idea that Henry and Edward are different people (shades of Jeffrey Combs playing Weyoun 6 & 7 in the same episode). Henry, oddly, is the more interesting one. And it's fun to see a normal guy having to deal with a psychopathic alter ego, plus with the knowledge that the psychopath is his true self. Sort of like taking
Chuck and
Dexter and mashing them together.
Henry's family is appealing, even the sulky teens, and I liked Alexander Siddig and James Callis' long-lost triplet as the tech guy. (How many of them are running around out there anyway?)
Also, the fact that this show will become an ongoing Camaro ad (cute Worlds of Warcraft plug, too) is a good thing because the overt product placement immunizes it somewhat from weak Neilsens. The debut didn't do too hot and I don't want to get into another show and just have it abruptly cancelled.
On the minus side, the premise makes no frakkin sense!
Why is the government trying to take super-spies and create innocuous personalities that are unaware of what's going on? Surely that doesn't increase their ability to have effective cover - it just makes them sitting ducks! Also the spyjinks are hackneyed. I found the action scenes uninteresting compared with the scenes where Henry is trying to figure out what is going on.
Bottom line, I'm sticking with this one for now. First new series that has grabbed me even in a minor way. Lousy new season this year.
Unless Henry is actually the real deal, he's the one who joined MI5/IMF/Control/Sector Seven, Edward is the result of that, Henry was brainwashed because being himself is the ultimate cover, and Edward is told he's the original because he's the dominant personality.
That would make a lot more sense for the premise, but it's more interesting if the normal guy really is the experiment. To reverse it later on doesn't really take the story in any interesting direction, except maybe to justify Henry's future attempt to "murder" Edward by driving out his consciousness, but even then, because Edward is an ongoing threat to Henry and his family, he'd be justified doing that eventually anyway. And I'm sure that's a plotline in our future if the Camaro product placements pay the bills and keep it going.
*Smacks head.* I just realized where I've seen Omid Abtahi before (aka the tech guy), he was the "Islamic terrorist" in the original
Heroes pilot, in a plotline that Tim Kring was perfectly right to drop (he, not Peter, was going to be the exploding man at the end.)
