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Burn Notice is an American television series created by Matt Nix. The show stars Jeffrey Donovan, Gabrielle Anwar, Bruce Campbell, Sharon Gless, and, beginning in the fourth season, Coby Bell.[1] The series premiered on June 28, 2007, on USA Network.[2][3] On April 15, 2010, the show was renewed for Seasons 5 and 6.[4]
The series title refers to the burn notices issued by intelligence agencies to discredit or announce the dismissal of agents or sources who are considered to have become unreliable. When spies are burned, their connection to an espionage organization is terminated, leaving them without access to cash or influence. According to the narration during the opening credits, the burned spy has no prior work history, no money—in essence, no identity. The television series uses first-person narrative (including frequent voice-overs providing exposition) from the viewpoint of covert-operations agent Michael Westen, played by Jeffrey Donovan. The voice-over commentary is in the form of tips for fledgling agents as if for a training or orientation film.
After fleeing a blown operation in Nigeria and being kidnapped and beaten, Westen finds himself in his hometown[5] of Miami, Florida. He is attended to by his ex-girlfriend, Fiona Glenanne, but he has been abandoned by all his normal intelligence contacts and is under continuous surveillance with his personal assets frozen. Extraordinary efforts to reach his U.S. government handler eventually yield only a grudging admission that someone powerful wants him "on ice" in Miami. If he leaves there, he will be hunted down and taken into custody; whereas, if he stays, he can remain relatively free. Consumed by the desire to find out why he has been burned, and by whom, Westen is reluctantly drawn into working as an unlicensed private investigator-cum-fixer for ordinary citizens to be able to fund his personal investigation into his situation as a blacklisted agent.
Westen invites his old friend Sam Axe to assist him, while Fiona invites herself to join them. With the occasional assistance and sometimes hindrance of his mother, Madeline, Westen battles an array of such criminal figures as mobsters, con artists, kidnappers and drug traffickers. At the same time, Michael must follow the trail that leads him to the people responsible for his being burned, and later finding out why.
The series juggles these two narratives; the overall series dealing with why Michael was burned, and individual episodes focusing on the cases he works for clients.
For seasonal plot details, see also:
Burn Notice spun off a series of tie-in novels. In 2008, Signet Books started publishing tie-in novels for the show under their Obsidian imprint:
Burn Notice was the subject of a February 6, 2010, Saturday Night Live skit featuring a television game show where contestants, including Ashton Kutcher, had to answer the question "What is Burn Notice?" The premise of the skit was that, despite the host providing clues and emphasizing the show's popularity, the contestants, host, and panel of judges knew nothing about the series.[7]
Comedian Aziz Ansari in his 2009 stand up routine mentions the program by alluding that no one watches the program, except for his cousin "Harris", poking fun at the cable television hour-long drama genre and the attraction of the program to his cousin (the subject of the routine segment) who is comedicly outside the program's target demographic.
A spin-off movie based on Sam Axe set before the events of Burn Notice is in the works, according to an interview with Matt Nix at the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con on July 22, 2010.[8]
The show is filmed on-location in and around Miami, Florida. The show has a permanent set built in the former Coconut Grove Convention Center in Miami's Coconut Grove neighborhood where most of the show is filmed.
The pilot episode written by Matt Nix won a 2008 Edgar Allan Poe Award, honoring the best in mystery, in the category "Best Television Episode Teleplay".[9] David Raines, Scott Clements and Sherry Klein were nominated for "Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Comedy or Drama Series" for Burn Notice Series (One-Hour) at the 60th Primetime Emmy Awards in 2008.[10] Composer John Dickson won 2008 and 2009 ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards for "Top TV Series". Craig S. O'Neill and Jason Tracey were nominated for a 2009 Writers Guild of America, USA award for "Episodic Drama" (episode "Double Booked"). In 2010, the show received its first Emmy Award nomination for acting, as Sharon Gless was nominated for an Emmy in the category of "Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama".[11]
Burn Notice is shown internationally on the following channels:
20th Century Fox has released the first two seasons of Burn Notice on DVD in Region 1. Season 2 was also released on Blu-ray.[14] Season 3 was released on June 1, 2010.[15]
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