Monday, July 19, 2010

This Blog Endorses Sam Axe Body Spray

Burn Notice - Season 3 (2009-2010)
rating: 4 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Netflix

Burn Notice is the most formulaic show I watch. Each week a new group of criminals – who pay lip service to the cultural diversity of Miami - is introduced and dispatched with MacGyver-like flair. I await the new "big bad" each season only to watch him/her assassinated with reckless clarity along about episode 16 by someone higher up the conspiratorial food chain.

So why do I love it so much? Why do I not get tired of the jokes, the scenarios, the routines? Part of it, yes, is the dynamic between Jeffrey Donovan, Gabrielle Anwar, and Bruce Campbell. Fiona is my favorite (currently airing) TV heroine (sorry Betts), not just because she's a badass but because the writers use her love for Michael to illuminate how selfish a person Michael can be. Romantic counterparts are often employed to make an unlikable character more appealing (why else would Anna date Morgan in Chuck?), but without Fi in his life, Michael's drive to get back into the CIA and help his country would seem nobler to us than it does to the woman who loves him. Instead of making Fiona a casualty of "necessary heroism," Burn Notice lets her be strong, sympathetic, and resentful - and for longer than the space of an episode.

The truth is, I can spend time with John T. Chance anytime I throw Rio Bravo into the DVD player. But you know what? Everyone who starred in that movie - except Angie Dickinson - is dead. And it's nice to be able to hang out with someone driving the same Ford F150 I used to own when a new season of Burn Notice comes out on DVD. It's nice to know I shook Bruce Campbell's hand in person once, and laugh at all those beer drinking jokes he cracks while I get something cold from the fridge. I don't have plans to visit Miami, but who wouldn't want to buy a ticket and make fun of Michael's suits from a beach chair by the ocean?

It's escapism on enough of a tether to relate to, not just because characters fall in love like you do, or have mothers, but because those mothers are empathizers and the people you fall in love with are gentle, decent human beings. After Season 2, I described Burn Notice as the definitive three-star show. Maybe it is, but I'd be lying to myself if I didn't give it four.