I loved Jeffrey Donovan as Detective Creegan in the USA adaptation of BBC's
Touching Evil and instantly checked out
Burn Notice when it arrived on USA. There's something quirky about Donovan, and
Burn Notice is no different, which leads to my surprise that it's still up and kicking after four seasons. But on June 23, Season Five will hit televisions everywhere, proving that Donovan has found his niche as the likeable, quirky, and always dangerous spy/ex-spy Michael Westin.
Spy/Ex-spy. Kind of confusing, isn't it? You're either one or the other in most shows. But
Burn Notice isn't most shows, and that starts with Westin's burned spy who now works part-time for the same government agency which burned him and also takes on side jobs saving people who can't save themselves. There's a humor here that seems to be similar to the
Ocean movies and comes as a direct result of Donovan's expression and delivery, usually combined with Bruce Campbell's Sam Axe, the other ex-spy who never really retired but moonlighted as a gigolo. Sorry, but if that's too shocking, then you must've never seen an episode before!
Here, in the fourth go-round, Westin goes after an escaped spy Simon (the creepy Simon Dillahunt) who was released by a higher up in Management while working with Vaughn (Robert Wisdom), who he sort of begrudgingly accepts against the wishes of Sam and Fiona (Gabrielle Anwar), Westin's lover/fellow spy. His Robin Hood deal rises to prominence with his befriending/sheltering Jesse Porter (Coby Bell), who Michael accidentally burns. They pursue the antagonists they always do, but they mix in a serious number of "special" cases, helping those who can't help themselves, and trying to avoid Westin's mother.
If you're a fan of the show, then you'll definitely dig the deleted scenes that are spread throughout the four discs, but my favorite is still the set of gag reels found on the first disc. You've got the general silliness in the crossover between
Burn Notice and
White Collar, and a bit more of the Campbell quirkiness to be found in the special features, in addition to standard audio commentaries.
I think one of my main reasons for liking the show is that none of the fearsome threesome is really A-list outside of the show. It's like B-rated folks are stronger together as the sum of their parts. And Westin as Robin Hood is definitely endearing—to look back over the course of four seasons, you can't certainly see that he's grown, at the very least, a conscience. While previously, he'd come across as self-centered, save-myself kind of spy, he's really turned into a more altruistic hero. It's like four years' worth of the series shows that people can change, and that's the sort of show I can definitely get behind.