Burn Notice: The Final Season

Burn Notice aired its final episode last night, with Michael Westen taking down yet another criminal mastermind. I didn't like every direction the show took, especially in the last two seasons. Its humor and helping the underdog fell by the wayside as Michael became consumed with trying to get "un-burned", a concept I never thought was plausible.

Season 7 gave us the deepest exploration of Michael's psyche and, as a side effect, threw his moral compass out of whack. It wasn't much fun to watch. The major message of Seasons 6 and 7 seemed to be that Michael and friends had to pay for their years of exacting personal justice, but it was a mixed message with Sam and Jesse ultimately getting passes. I did appreciate Michael and Fiona escaping an exploding building so narrowly that perhaps only Sam and Jesse knew they had survived. Being presumed dead was the only way the couple could worm out of the trouble they were facing.

The series would have worked better for me if Michael hadn't worked for a standard government agency. That raised a tough question for the writers: How do we clear Michael for government work with all the less-than-legal stuff he's done since getting burned?

The realm of spies has leeway to be murky. In the pilot, Michael said he didn't work for anyone officially. If he worked for a fictitious, off-book subsection to begin with, the protocol for getting cleared back to work could have been made up, and the show could have delivered the same message: Working with a small group of trusted friends is better than working for a larger organization.

All this said, Burn Notice ended the way I wanted, with Michael giving up his old life, embracing a new life with Fiona.

BURN NOTICE: THE FALL OF SAM AXE

Read my review of last night's Burn Notice prequel movie at BSCreview. Thanks as always to editor Elena Nola.

Burn Notice Season 4 Reviewed

Here are links to my BSCreview coverage of Burn Notice Season 4, just wrapped this past Thursday. I didn't know how the addition of Coby Bell as Jesse Porter would affect things, but overall I think it worked to expand the show's scope.

Stay tuned for Bruce Campbell's Burn Notice prequel movie next spring, directed by Jeffrey Donovan.

Friends and Enemies
Fast Friends
Made Man
Breach of Faith
Neighborhood Watch
Entry Point
Past and Future Tense
Where There's Smoke
Center of the Storm
Hard Time
Blind Spot
Guilty as Charged
Eyes Open
Hot Property
Brotherly Love
Dead or Alive
Out of the Fire
Last Stand

I Ain't Got Time to Blog

Actually, I've just been blogging elsewhere the past week, TV reviews at BSCreview, DVD reviews at Crimespree Cinema. Psych and Burn Notice return to the schedule this week and my BSC reviews will pick up in kind.

Also, previous Lois Lane Teri Hatcher appears on Smallville this week as the current Lois's mother, Ella.

TIED IN edited by Lee Goldberg

Though they weren't the first tie-ins I read, my interest in the business and craft of tie-in novels took off with Lee Goldberg's Monk series. At the time, Goldberg was already known as the writer of Diagnosis: Murder novels based on the Dick Van Dyke TV series he produced. Goldberg has since co-founded the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers, whose members contribute to Tied In, a book of informative essays and interviews.

The book will appeal most to fans of tie-ins and those looking to get into the business, but it's also worth a look to anyone with an open mind about tie-ins. I especially enjoyed the essays by Lee's brother Tod, a journalist and literary writer who jumped at the chance to write Burn Notice novels; Jeff Mariotte, delving into the vast array of trivia a working tie-in writer must know; and Burl Barer, explaining how novelists create deeper motivation for characters whose lives are only partially shown onscreen.

Unplugged

It rained here for about five minutes yesterday afternoon, but we felt the effects of Long Island's worse weather, losing power for almost seven hours. The power came back around 9:15 PM, but from about midnight to 2:35 PM today, I was without TV and Internet access.

Luckily there was enough daylight yesterday and no urgent need to open the fridge. I was able to watch two-thirds of Burn Notice last night, caught the rest today, and posted my weekly review before 5:00 PM.

In the meantime, I read a good chunk of The Apprentice by Tess Gerritsen.

Burn Notice: "Long Way Back"

My review of last night's summer finale is up at BSCreview.

Burn Notice: "Friends Like These"

Damon Caporaso recently invited to review television for BSCreview. I'll have weekly commentary on The Big Bang Theory, Bones, Burn Notice, NCIS, and NCIS: Los Angeles, and Psych.

My review of this week's Burn Notice, "Friends Like These" has just been published. Thanks again, Damon.

Burn Notice: "Lesser Evil"

Having captured Victor (Michael Shanks), Michael decides to take him on as a client, protecting him from Carla's pursuit, while continuing to get answers. Burn Notice's second season finale was a breathless, exciting, bullet-ridden chase. Michael finally meets the man who burned him, who claims Michael is better off under his protection. Still, he offers Michael a chance to go it alone, which Michael takes.

Once again, this season has had great continuity and a sense of real progress. I look forward to what's next for Michael this summer.

Leverage: "The First David Job"

This time it's personal. To give Nate some closure, or maybe just for the heck of it, the team decides to ruin the reputation of Ian Blackpoole (Kevin Tighe), head of IYS Insurance, whose inaction led to the death of Nate's son. The plan hinges on getting Blackpoole, a collector of Renaissance art, to buy a fake scale model of Michelangelo's David, authenticated by Eliot playing an art expert.

When Blackpoole brings in his own art expert, Nate's ex-wife Maggie (Kari Matchett), the team is forced to steal the real First David, as the planned fake would never fool her. The job seems to go off without a hitch, until Jim Sterling (Mark Sheppard) shows up. Having anticipated their talents, Sterling neutralizes the team on separate fronts: capturing Parker, holding Hardison hostage at Leverage HQ, and sending a formidable fighter after Eliot.

Nate turns the tables by having the team do the unexpected: Sophie stages a daredevil rescue of Parker; instead of fighting six men, Eliot uses electronics to fry their earpieces. And so the team escapes, but their covers are blown, their hideout abandoned. A classic bridge-burning, cliff-hanging season finale—except it was only Part One.

In next week's conclusion, Nate takes a run at Blackpoole with all of IYS's resources aware he's coming.

Trivia: In last week's episode of Burn Notice, Alex Carter played a government agent opposing Mark Sheppard's bank robber. In this episode of Leverage, Carter played one of Sheppard's henchmen.

Burn Notice: "Bad Breaks"

Put out by the reappearance of CSS agent Jason Bly (Alex Carter), Michael nonetheless helps his mother's friend Paula, who believes she's being stalked by someone she met online. When Paula calls Michael saying the stalker has shown up at her work, Michael learns that Paula works at a private bank. Bly is there, too, and stalker Prescott (Mark Sheppard) isn't a stalker, but a bank robber.

Even more than usual, this episode showed Michael's spy expertise in action. After attending to Bly, shot after attempting heroics, Michael takes on the guise of a doctor, pretending to patch up Prescott's men when he's actually disarming or poisoning them. He also manages to defeat Prescott's cell phone block and call Sam and Fiona for help.

On friendlier terms after their ordeal, Bly helps Michael track this season's Big Bad. Unfortunately, the best Bly can come up with is a number with nothing behind it.

Burn Notice: "Do No Harm"

When last we saw Michael Westen, unknown forces had rigged the door to his loft with a bomb. Luckily he leaps away from the explosion in time and lands on his car. Shortly after regaining consciousness he stops a man named Kenny from committing suicide. Despite being pulled in by Carla (Tricia Helfer), Michael is determined to help Kenny's son, who needs specialized treatment and drugs. To do that, he needs to bust the black market drug scam for which Kenny fell.

Though it's been four months between episodes, the image of Michael leaping from the fire remained clear in my mind. All the characters pick up seamlessly, and the tension between Michael and Fiona is recharged as good-hearted EMT Campbell tells Fiona that Michael is her true love.

This episode also shows Michael's meaner side as he decides to stop eluding surveillance and confront Carla head-on. As a flagless spy, Michael is a perfect character type to switch tactics and loyalties on the fly.

Six Months Notice

Tod Goldberg's second Burn Notice tie-in novel is due out May 5:



We don't have to wait six months for TV's Burn Notice, though. That resumes its second season Thursday, January 22.

Burn Notice: "Good Soldier"

Hot on Carla's trail, Michael is approached by Fiona's boyfriend to help prevent a kidnapping. As interesting as that plot was, it felt like filler next to the rising stakes of the season-long arc. As the kidnapping plot wraps up, things are thrown into chaos as Carla's sniper is killed, and the same unknown enemy has booby-trapped Michael's loft to explode. We fade from the explosion to a "To Be Continued'.

I want to find out what happens next week, but at least I only have to wait until winter.

BURN NOTICE: THE FIX by Tod Goldberg

As a fan of USA Network's Burn Notice, I've wanted to read this tie-in since last November, when I heard Tod Goldberg was tapped to write it. The Fix has burned spy Michael Westen reluctantly helping an aging socialite who's been swindled out of a sizable chunk of her fortune. He also encounters a femme fatale from his past who accuses him of implicating her in a crime. This last has to do with the falsified dossier (from the TV series) that got Michael burned in the first place.

Goldberg has a good handle on Michael's wry, seen-it-all tone as well as his relationships with Fiona, Sam, his mother, and brother. I envisioned a two-hour episode of Burn Notice as I read. The book does indeed give fans their fix. My only quibble is with Michael's narration. Of everything about the show, the voiceover has the least legs. On screen it can be broken up by action. The page has no such recourse. First-person is necessary to smoothly deliver Michael's spycraft know-how, but the book can read like one long voiceover with meandering sentences early on that I didn't expect from Michael.

I still recommend The Fix to fans of the show and of spy fiction in general, and I look forward to where Goldberg takes the characters.

Get Burned

Out today is the Burn Notice tie-in novel The Fix by Tod Goldberg. My copy should arrive in ten days or so.

Facespotting

Patrick Fischler played friendly gem-eating alien Roland Newleaf on Monday's episode of The Middleman, and fidgety computer tech Jimmy on last night's episode of Burn Notice.

Burn Notice: "Breaking and Entering"

We last left Michael Westen driving into the trailer of a semi to finally meet the people who burned him. In tonight's season premiere, before that can happen, Michael overhears a firefight and is forced to help a computer geek steal data from a private military firm. Though the tone seems a touch darker, the action a bit more urgent, the characters' chemistry remains.

If this season holds together as well as the first, we should learn enough to keep us riveted, but not enough to satisfy until the end.

Burn Notice: The Book

Tod Goldberg, author of the upcoming Burn Notice tie-in novel, The Fix, talks about his process bringing Michael Westen to life on the page.

BURN Gets Notice!

Matt Nix has won the 2008 Edgar for Best Teleplay for Series Episode for the Burn Notice pilot.