Burn
Notice Season One Review
Regardless
of whether watched on a computer monitor, iPod, mobile phone or flat-screen
TV, television has risen above the stigma of its early years to become
the premier storytelling medium of the Twenty-First Century. From comedy
to drama, mystery to fantasy, sci-fi to spy thriller, the former “vast
wasteland” now offers something for everybody on a level equal
or superior to film and literature. Looking for sci-fi? Try Battlestar
Galactica. Medical dramas? There’s Grey’s Anatomy.
Epic mysteries? Lost. In the mood for comedy? How about The
Office and 30 Rock. All of the above not only entertain,
but invoke storytelling techniques filled with philosophical discourses
and social critiques that compliment the narrative. Then there’s
Burn Notice on USA Network. This light-hearted affair may not
raise your IQ level but it is the small-screen answer to 1980s “buddy
movies” and firmly establishes television as an equal to film
in that genre as well.
Michael
Westen (Jeffrey Donovan) is a spy. More precisely, a freelancer for
the CIA. While on assignment in Nigeria he discovers he has been issued
a “burn notice,” the espionage equivalent of being fired.
Cut-off from his associates by direct order of the United States government
and with his bank accounts frozen, he is unceremoniously “dumped”
in Miami and put under constant FBI surveillance. With a handful of
friends (and family), Westen now earns a living by taking small jobs
helping every day people who suddenly find themselves in need of someone
with his expertise, while also trying to figure out who “burned”
him and why he has been blacklisted from his profession.
Although
the FOX drama 24 has raised the bar on the spy/espionage thriller
in recent years, Burn Rate is more a throwback to the days
of Lethal Weapon and television shows like Magnum PI
and MacGyver. Westen, for instance, has a likeable charm equivalent
to the classic Tom Selleck character, while likewise showing an adept
ability to piece together hi-tech apparatuses out of hardware store
items similar to Richard Dean Anderson. In many ways Michael Westen
is even the television equivalent of Jason Bourne from the Robert Ludlum
novels and Matt Damon movies, a former spy whose common-sense knowledge
and training gives him the ability to outwit his adversaries, whether
they are drug-dealers, high-class pimps, foreign gunrunners or members
of clandestine federal agencies.
Jeffrey
Donovan also provides the occasional voiceover in Burn Notice that
offers simplistic advice for various espionage and life-threatening
situation. “I never run around in the bushes in a ski mask when
I’m breaking in some place,” he explains in the pilot episode.
“Somebody catches you, what are you going to say? You want to
look like a legitimate visitor until the very last minute. If you can’t
look legit, confused works just as well. Maybe get a soda from the fridge
or a yogurt. If you’re caught, you just act confused and apologize
like crazy for taking the yogurt; nothing can be more innocent.”
Even though
all the gadgets and trickery are entertaining, and the story of a former
spy helping the helpless while trying to clear his name is compelling,
Burn Notice is in essence an old-fashioned “buddy”
narrative with an oddball assortment of supporting characters. Sam Axe,
for instance, is a former covert operative himself who now lives in
Miami and has a penchant for heavy drinking and seducing middle-aged
women of wealth. Played by Bruce Campbell of Evil Dead fame,
Sam could very easily be classified as a typical “caricature”
if it wasn’t for the veteran B-movie actor’s charisma and
comic timing. Lethal Weapon 2—the blueprint for all “buddy”
dramas—was written by Jeffrey Boam who, ironically enough, co-created
The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. with Lost executive
producer Carlton Cuse in 1993. This part sci-fi, part western television
series featured Campbell in the lead role, and the likeability he brought
to Brisco is evident in Sam. Whether openly informing on Westen to the
FBI, cheating on his female companions or mistakenly calling a complex
job a “cake-walk,” one cannot help but sympathize with the
teddy bear-like sidekick.
Gabrielle
Anwar—whose previous “claim-to-fame” was as the dancing
partner of a blind Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman—is cast
as Westen’s former IRA girlfriend, Fiona Glenanne. Although the
thin thespian may not appear to fit the mold of a trigger-happy, bank-robbing
Irish terrorist, Anwar’s quirky interpretation of the hard-edged
femme fatale who still has a soft-spot for the former lover who left
her is intriguing nonetheless. With dry commentary, a sinister smile
and sharp head tilts, it’s not difficult to imagine Fiona as slightly
unstable, and Anwar’s elfin physique is a welcome relief to the
overdone overly-endowed women normally cast in such roles. Sharon Gless
of Cagney & Lacey notoriety, meanwhile, plays Westen’s
chain-smoking, hypochondriac mother. Although son Michael has not been
“home” in over eight years, she quickly falls into such
“motherly” routines as calling him incessantly on his cell
phone, demonstrating selective memory-loss during conversations and
resorting to the occasional guilt-ridden blackmail to get her way. Seth
Peterson rounds out the cast as estranged brother Nate Westen, the black
sheep of the family who is always looking to make a fast buck.
Although
none of the characters are groundbreaking, each brings an exuberant
charm that offsets any stereotype deficiencies and makes them more “character”
than “caricature.” And while the storylines may not be as
complex compared to other dramas on the airwaves these days, the dialogue
is both natural and filled with an engaging comic wit. Burn Notice
may never win any Emmys, but it is a quality show nonetheless that helps
to cement the Twenty First Century’s growing reputation as a Golden
Age of Television.
June 30,
2008
