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Move over James Bond; I’ve got a new spy-hero-man-crush, and his name is Michael Westen.

For those who have never seen an episode of Burn Notice on USA Network, I’ll summarize the premise of the show: a freelance spy gets ostracized from the intelligence community and stuck in Florida until he can figure out who burned him. While that does describe the setup, it’s only a portion of what is going on with this original and funny program.

Jeffery Donovan (the American Touching Evil series) plays Michael Westen, a yogurt-loving spy who performs tasks for the CIA without being on their regular payroll.  In the middle of a mission in Africa, he gets burned (a term meaning fired and blacklisted in the intelligence life) and ends up dumped in Miami.  Michael finds his accounts have been frozen and he’s being tailed by the FBI. While Michael tries to find out who burned him and why, he takes odd jobs around Miami acting as bodyguard, detective, and all around problem-solver.

Luckily (but sometimes to his chagrin), Michael has family and friends in Florida that are still willing to talk to him and even help him. Michael’s former flame and ex-IRA operative Fiona (Gabrielle Anwar from The Tudors) still carries a torch for him. Not only does she want to help him accomplish his weekly odd job, but in addition, Fiona wants Michael to realize that they should be together again.  One of Michael’s oldest friends, Sam (played by Evil Dead and Bubba Ho-tep star Bruce Campbell) also happens to live in Miami and helps Michael, mostly by gathering intel and providing distractions.  Sam is an ex-operative who is forced to feed the FBI information about Michael, in between rounds of drinking and chasing women – hey, you gotta have your priorities.  Michael’s chain-smoking mother (Sharon Gless) and brother Nate (Seth Peterson) are reminders of the past he ran away from, but they still find a way to help Michael get his life back to where it should be – sometimes, with ease, but mostly with turbulence.  Ex-spy Lucy (China Chow) and money launderer Barry (Paul Tei) round out Michael’s Miami pantheon.

Michael leads the audience through each episode with a voiceover that is informative and funny.  Unlike the British super spy mentioned above, Westen isn’t smooth all the time.  Although he is a smart guy, things sometimes go badly for him, and thinking quick on his feet is the only resource he has.  That and a charming smile.  Fiona is a handful – aggressive and ordinance-friendly. Her American accent she affects after the pilot episode is pretty convincing.  Sam causes half as much trouble as he helps fix; but he’s got a dry wit that he delivers in such a non-cheesy cheesy sort of way that it’s hard not to like him.

There are a couple of self-referential gags that are really great.  Fiona and Sam pose as officers “Cagney & Lacey” in episode 2 (Sharon “Madeline Westen” Gless played Cagney in the 1980’s female cop buddy show of the same name).  Sam and Barry play a name game where Sam uses “Spider-Man” as one of his choices (Campbell has appeared in all three Spider-Man films). Though not specifically referenced, when the group is prepping for a job, the building of devices scenarios are very reminiscent of The A-Team and MacGyver. Furthermore, the guest stars that keep popping up (David Zayas, Esai Morales, Arye Gross, and a super-hot blonde Lucy Lawless) were all welcome additions to the individual stories they were involved in and the overall story arc of the season.

Though the writing is good (my favorite line being, “You say tomato, I say pimp.”), the improvised lines worked really well. After watching the Gag Reel on the bonus features, I felt bad for the director who would have to pick which one of Bruce Campbell’s lines is the best for a scene. Additional bonus features include scene-by-scene commentary from cast and crew, a character montage, auditions, an action montage, and the best b-roll footage ever created (the “Girls Gone Burn Notice” feature). The only feature I didn’t really get was the Saving Grace cross-pollination ad.  In my opinion, USA Network would have been smarter to put a more similar show there (Psych comes to mind as a good choice).

Burn Notice was created by producer/writer/director Matt Nix. Nix’s intelligent humor permeates through all the characters in the show, as does his obvious appreciation of the spy genre. For another look at Nix’s work, I would suggest checking out Me and the Big Guy. I found it pretty quickly on YouTube and laughed at the weirdness.  WORD OF ADVICE: Those of you who haven’t read or seen 1984 may miss some of the best gags.

Success in the spy game is staying one step ahead of the other guy, and this show flies ahead of the other weekly spy programs. Every episode in Burn Notice: Season 1 can be enjoyed on its own, but I found that the most exciting story is the series plot that continues all they way through with a great cliffhanger ending. Each of the 4 discs (containing all 11 episodes) starts with a commercial for season 2 that showcases Westen’s love of yogurt. A brilliant move, since I now think of Burn Notice every time I’m grocery shopping and am eagerly anticipating season 2 (which starts Thursday, July 10th).

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