• My Own Worst Enemy, 10-11 p.m. Monday, WTVJ-NBC 6

When a sultry Russian double agent whispers her postcoital love to hard-boiled American spy Edward Albright, he warns her: ``Don't let an act of deception turn into an act of self-deception.''

That was both good advice -- he shoots her in the head a moment later, and believe me, that's not even close to a spoiler in this roller-coaster ride of a show -- and a succinct summary of MyOwn Worst Enemy, NBC's riveting new spy drama. Self-deception is the foundation of this wilderness of mirrors, where nothing is real but the bullets.

In a twist on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Christian Slater plays two men trapped inside the same body. One is Henry Spivey, a corporate drone with a house in the 'burbs and a soccer-mom wife in the SUV. The other is Albright, an assassin whose cynicism (''God created the most beautiful place on Earth; then he put the French there to even things out'') is exceeded only by his bloodlust.

Spivey and Albright aren't merely different identities, they're separate personalities, the result of a Frankensteinish government program to create the perfect cover for spies. Like Jekyll and Hyde, Spivey and Albright are never conscious at the same time -- one is always ''asleep,'' as the spymasters put it -- and the mild-mannered Spivey isn't even aware that he's sharing his brain with someone else.

But breaches have started to appear in the the psychological firewall separating Spivey and Albright, with the wrong identity popping up by surprise. When Spivey awakes unexpectedly in Moscow to find himself about to assassinate a Russian agent, everything unravels, and both personalities find themselves in danger: Albright from the vengeful Russians, and Spivey from the American spymasters who want to erase him -- for it turns out that it was Spivey, not Albright, who was cooked up in a CIA lab.

My Own Worst Enemy is by far the best drama of the fall season, a bold and brainy spy thriller that practices a sort of armed existentialism. As the spymasters prepare an injection that will blank out any memories of his murderous extracurricular activities, Spivey pleads: ''I want my life to be real.'' Replies the icily smooth spy boss: ''You'll think it's real.'' In a time when virtual reality has spread from computers into banking, politics and everything else, My Own Worst Enemy wonders, is there any difference?

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