Burn Notice: Season 3 Episode 1

In comparison to the recent spate of cutting edge, realist drama that have elevated TV to the kind of heights rarely if ever seen before, Burn Notice is a strange hybrid of the sleek Dexter and CSI: Miami (like Burn Notice, both set in the Florida sunshine) and the hammy kitsch-like qualities of 80s stalwarts Miami Vice and The A-Team. As with the latter show, despite the high gun shot and explosion count, very few characters actually die or even shed blood.

This first episode of the show's third season sees Michael - the charisma void that is Jeffrey Donovan - emerge from the ocean having made peace with the organisation that burned him. Cast adrift without agency protection, he comes under close scrutiny from the police. Seemingly held without charge, he is freed by an old spy associate Harlan (Brian Van Holt) who persuades him to take on a job as a favour; a job which involves kidnapping and extraditing a Venezuelan crime lord who is stealing land from peasant farmers.

Jettisoning anything as inconsequential as a coherent plot and consistent character motivation, the episode lurches from one baffling twist to another. More a batch of set pieces tied together by the most tenuous of story arcs, the best you can say for this episode is that you might learn something about security systems and why garbage trucks don’t tend to have alarms fitted (a piece of useless trivia perfect for that awkward moment of silence at the water cooler).

Only the presence of the great Bruce Campbell as Michael’s burnt out, disheveled sidekick prevents Burn Notice from becoming a black hole of inanity. On the bright side, at least there are only another four seasons left to endure. One to do the ironing to.



Airs at 10pm on Wednesday 1st September 2010 on FX.

Reviewed by Sam Monk.