Critical Condition: The Enemy Within

The Enemy Within | Lightbox, from Monday

☆☆☆☆ “The new drama The Enemy Within marks NBC’s latest fairly unsuccessful attempt to copy whatever NBC executives interpret to be the template that turned The Blacklist into a hit. It isn’t the worst in the network’s line of dramas featuring generic intelligence operatives forced to team up with morally and ethically compromised partners best kept in containment. But … the network has steadily drained the fun from the premise and The Enemy Within is surely the most dour and joyless entry in this mini-genre.” — The Hollywood Reporter.

☆☆☆☆ “With The Americans gone and but a single reason remaining for Homeland, the field is clear for another spy show. And we just may have a contender with NBC’s curiously under-publicised The Enemy Within, a steely tale of a hunt for a mole in the CIA. A near-perfect mixture of the chess-piece intricacy of The Good Shepherd and the loony bang-bang of the Mission: Impossible movies, Enemy is a classic infinity-of-mirrors counterintelligence drama—and in more ways than one.” — Reason.

☆☆☆☆ “The Enemy Within is a predictably thin and hyped-up network concoction. But connoisseurs of gothic silliness can appreciate it as a gender-switched homage to The Silence of the Lambs, with [Jennifer] Carpenter as a female Hannibal Lecter and Morris Chestnut as the F.B.I. agent assigned to oversee her (even though his fiancée died as a result of her treason).” — New York Times.

☆☆☆☆ “The Enemy Within hinges on a familiar combination of paranoia and determination, painting a picture of a fractured government that’s nonetheless full of decent people trying to do the right thing. It tries hard to seed shocking twists throughout, but in the two episodes screened for critics, every one is telegraphed loudly enough that the moments when the show deigns to reveal them is more a relief than a thrill.” — Variety.

☆☆☆☆ “Conjures enough twists and serialised crumbs within its threat-of-the-week capers to sustain interest across the three episodes previewed … The Enemy Within doesn’t bring much new to the party but offers enough polish on this earnestly played, tried-and-true formula so as not to be its own worst enemy.” — CNN.