Michael Weston Used To Be A Spy...

Burn Notice is a lot like another show I watched, and loved, this year - Veronica Mars. Well, not entirely, but it seems like a lot of the concepts are the same, and the genre is not so bent out of shape that it screws it out of an audience, but I'll have more on that later. First off is the Burn Notice love-in.

Burn Notice is a spy show with some twists on the formula that make it much more interesting to watch. The show centers on Michael, who was a spy, and was somehow kicked out of the club, and he wants to know why. Since he was burned, he's being watched by the government, can't get on a plane, and, well, no one wants anything to do with him any more. He's stuck in his home town of Miami with his crazy former IRA ex, Fiona, his old drunk womanizing buddy Sam, and his carping mother, who hasn't seen Michael since he joined the army at 18.  It's got legendary Evil Dead/Army of Darkness actor Bruce Campbell and Cagney and Lacey's Sharon Gless! Needless to say, the acting is amazing, not only because of those two actors, but Jeffrey Donovan and Gabrielle Anwar also hold their own as well

One of the most interesting things about it is how it feels more real than other espionage shows even though it isn't. The shit they pull is bananas. The ever-present detached Michael Weston narration that gives the hot spy tips, as well as the extended MacGyver-esque DIY sequences where the characters build and use their low tech spy equipment contribute to the feeling that Burn Notice takes place in a somewhat more real world than other spy fiction. They do get to have quite a bit of humor as well, so the world isn't too real. They pull off that balance well.

The series is about Michael finding out about the shady people behind his burn notice, but episode-to-episode, Michael plays the PI who helps out needy people. Usually he gets mixed up with scammers, gangs, and all sorts of underworld characters and manages to con them in some ingenious way in the end, kind of like Leverage. Moment to moment, though, it plays a lot like Veronica Mars, except without the teen drama. In my mind, that's more palatable to a larger audience - people who want to watch sneaky PIs probably also want them to be rad ex-spies who are also male and in their thirties rather than a little blonde teenager who has to contend with high school and college social cliques as well as her case load. I love 'em both, though.