Nutshell Reviews: Burn Notice

Some of you may remember that I wrote a brief post about a new series with Bruce Campbell in it called Burn Notice that was starting up. What? You haven't read that one? It's two posts down! Go read it now. I'll wait...

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Ok. Back? Did you read it? Good.

So you know the basic idea. CIA guy get fired, but worse, he gets blacklisted. Funds frozen, no chance of getting a job anywhere and stuck in Florida with his mom, what's a guy to do. This one turns MacGyver P.I.

You see, this Westen guy is good with his head, and uses it over brute strength any day he can. So he builds gadgets, rigs up listening devices, points out flaws on bullet proof doors (the surrounding walls are plasterboard... well, they are in this one!) and yes, uses duct tape to... to... well, do stuff. Very MacGyver. He also uses a gun and has no fear about killing people if the need arises, but usually such an act would be bad for his current business. So not entirely like MacGyver then!

He doesn't know why he's been given a Burn Notice, so there's one story arc right off. Cult movie god Bruce plays an old friend, and a good one too, while another contact he makes use of is ex-girlfriend, Fiona. Fiona makes me want to claw my ears off with a rusty spoon. You see, she's Irish. Actually, no. She Oirish. And ex-IRA. Oh god! Oh god it hurts. The less time this girl gets on screen for the season the better. Thankfully, Westen doesn't trust her much, so most of the buddy stuff is with Bruce's character, Sam Axe. Yay!

The writings good, there are some nice gimmicks and they're not afraid of copying, or plagiarising from other popular series. Best of all, they're not afraid of admitting it either! About halfway in my girlfriend Claire commented that this show was very like "Like MacGyver, but with more violence" and within minutes he's praising the glory of duct tape while setting something up himself! Oh how we laughed! No really. We did. I had to go back cause we missed 30 seconds of the show from it! Oh! And Westons mom is played by one half of Cagney and Lacey! I love that show!

Acting is good, the main guy is fun to watch (and a bit of a hunk for you lady viewers!), Bruce is great, and the plots are strong. Ok. Plot. I've only seen the one episode so far.

Recommend it? Sure. Give it a go. But keep the remote in your hand. Any time Fiona shows up (she looks like this), hit mute and bring up the subtitles. As soon as she's gone, back to the audio track! A simple task to make the show completely fun to watch. Even without that, it's good. Just... oh... her voice!

Now as amber (hi amber!) pointed out in the comments of that preview post, "That guy wasn't as spy-ish as I hoped", and she's right, but now that we know that the show is going for a more gadgetty feel, I'm happy to go with it. Some day we'll get a proper full on spy show, and we'll all be happy viewers, taking detailed notes for our future career in the secret-trading business necessitated by the post-apocalyptic zombie-filled nightmare world of the future we'll all be living in. Until then, this is a blast!