The Big Picture
- The “Blue Sky” and “Characters Welcome” Era of the USA Network brought exceptional creativity and fun to television with shows like Suits and Burn Notice.
- Burn Notice had a great ensemble, led by Jeffrey Donovan as a blacklisted CIA agent in Miami, but the show struggled to wrap up its burn notice plot.
- The real charm of Burn Notice lies in its dynamic cast and their amazing chemistry, despite the convoluted spy storylines.
What was dubbed the “Blue Sky” and “Characters Welcome” Era of the USA Network constituted an era of exceptional creativity and fun, memorable, quality scripted, narrative television shows. At the time, it made USA Network one of the most exciting networks around, characterized by such hit shows as Suits, White Collar, Royal Pains, and of course, Burn Notice. Suits is currently enjoying a nice resurgence after the show recently began streaming on Netflix. However, Burn Notice was one of the defining shows of the era for the USA Network, running for seven seasons and over 110 episodes, plus one television movie. Burn Notice boasted a tremendous ensemble cast, led by the versatile Jeffrey Donovan as Michael Westen, a blacklisted CIA agent left stranded in Miami with all his agency ties cut and his reputation in tatters.
Throughout the series, Michael seeks to uncover the secrets of the culprits who ruined his career. Along the way, he’s joined by his ex-girlfriend, the former IRA member Fiona Glenanne (Gabrielle Anwar), his retired Navy SEAL buddy Sam Axe (the legendary Bruce Campbell), and his previously estranged mother Madeline (Sharon Gless). While investigating the circumstances of his burn notice, Michael also becomes a freelancer for hire, helping unfortunate individuals get out of tight spots, using his skills as a highly trained covert spy to outsmart various criminals and gangsters and taking on a variety of false aliases to complete his assignments. Burn Notice was a refreshing, often funny, and action-packed series. The cast had great chemistry, and the show benefited from a good mix of comedy with spy-thriller subplots. Unfortunately, after several seasons, the show seemed to lose sight of its goals and the writers couldn’t quite figure out the best way to wrap up the burn notice plot, which grew increasingly overwrought and convoluted.
‘Burn Notice’ Has Big Setups With Little Payoffs
During the first half of the show, Michael uncovers a deep government conspiracy, a secret rogue cabal within the United States government called “The Organization” that runs illegal black ops missions and utilizes blacklisted spies. The Organization was responsible for framing and blacklisting Michael from the CIA to recruit him to their side. Eventually, the operative known only as “Management” (John Mahoney) is introduced as the shadowy agency’s face and leader. He only appears twice during the show, in the second and third season finales. Here is the first big problem with Burn Notice. The series sets up Management as The Organization’s leader, face, and figurehead. Not to mention, the producers snagged a tremendous veteran in John Mahoney, playing against type for once, as the organization’s malevolent, amoral leader. Management’s appearances in the show were brief, yet memorable. However, despite the prolonged buildup to introduce Management, he is shown to have trifling significance to the plot in later seasons.
Unfortunately, Management, despite his nickname, isn’t the only leader of “The Organization.” Management all but disappears from the show after Season 3. Around Season 5, it’s implied that he was apprehended or taken down offscreen by the CIA. Despite Management appearing to be the main boss of the organization, he’s later shown to be of little consequence. All that buildup to the reveal of Management and doing so little with the character later on proved disappointing. At the very least, the series should have shown him being taken into custody or interrogated to hint at his partners. To have such significant buildup around a character only to carelessly discard him offscreen later is flawed storytelling.
At the end of Season 4, Michael manages to clear his name and expose the existence of “The Organization.” In the Season 4 finale, he’s escorted by CIA agents to Washington, D.C. where he meets the mysterious Raines (Dylan Baker). Raines is yet another character with significant buildup and little payoff. Raines appears briefly again at the start of Season 5, but he’s never seen again after that. It comes off like Raines was Michael’s mentor, old boss, and/or handler within the CIA. They clearly had a pre-established relationship. Michael finally clearing his name and removing his burn notice was a breakthrough for his character arc, but it seems like the showrunners did not know what to do with Michael after that because that’s when Burn Notice started floundering. Despite all the pomp, circumstance, and ceremony surrounding Raines’ reveal, he only has one appearance in Season 5. After that, the mysterious Raines is never seen again.
Later in the series, Raines is essentially replaced by a similar character named Tom Card (John C. McGinley), who is revealed as another member of “The Organization” and associate of both Management and another “Organization” member Anson Fullerton (Jere Burns). Despite all the setup and storytelling surrounding the Management character, Anson is introduced in Season 5 as the true leader, founder, and mastermind behind “The Organization.” Later on, Card is revealed to have been Michael’s trainer and mentor within the CIA when that role was essentially set up for the Raines character. Burn Notice had a bit of a nasty habit of big character reveals only to unceremoniously discard them later. The show went to the well one too many times with the bait-and-switch narrative trope.
‘Burn Notice’ Has a Clunky Final Season
Essentially, “The Organization” was positioned as the big bad of Burn Notice throughout its first six seasons. Agents of “The Organization” continually target Michael, his friends, and his family throughout most of the show. By the sixth season finale, Michael finally kills the last living member of the cabal, his mentor Tom Card. However, the season ends with Michael being taken into custody and forced to make a deal with the CIA to keep his friends out of lifetime imprisonment. This leads to Season 7, where a lone Michael is sent deep undercover to expose another rogue terrorist group. So, after six seasons of dealing with “The Organization” and its remnants, the show introduces a new big bad after “The Organization” subplot finally ran out of steam and limped to the end.
The leader of the new villainous organization is the charismatic James Kendrick (John Pyper-Ferguson). Kendrick’s manipulative brainwashing techniques are so severe that even Michael has difficulty maintaining his composure during the undercover assignments and starts getting lost in his mission to apprehend Kendrick. At first, Kendrick is a ghost, and the CIA doesn’t even know the true leader of his organization, believing it first to be Kendrick’s underling, Randall Burke (Adrian Pasdar). Michael risks life and limb just to get into a room to meet Kendrick for the first time in yet another momentous, significant moment. Kendrick is so secretive and cautious, that he often uses proxies and agents to act in his stead. Yet after he’s introduced, Kendrick starts to frequently appear out in the open with little thought put into his actions. While Michael had to go through absolute hell to meet Kendrick, Kendrick has no problem venturing out of his compound to meet Michael’s teammates or other characters. Surely a character this cautious, secretive, and overprotective about his identity would not be so conspicuous, especially when he doesn’t know Michael’s teammates?
The goals of Kendrick’s organization were rather murky throughout Season 7. In one episode Kendrick ordered Michael and his team to act as security for a Middle Eastern diplomat advocating peace talks in the Middle East to protect him from bounty hunters. “The Organization” was presented as a rogue syndicate cabal running illegal operations to their own ends. Kendrick’s Network came off as philanthropic on one hand, but brutal and vicious with their tactics on another. Kendrick was a former special forces operative who became disenfranchised with the work he was doing in the name of the United States government. If anything, the CIA was starting to look more like the amoral antagonists of Season 7. That may have been intentional on the part of the creators, but then they position Michael’s friends and teammates as the voice of reason, bemoaning and criticizing Kendrick’s operations. And then despite Kendrick’s virtuous, sanctimonious diatribes, he will murder anyone who gets in his way and crosses him. Michael’s CIA contact in Season 7, Andrew Strong (Jack Coleman), also tacitly approves of Michael murdering others if it means taking down Kendrick. When it looks like Michael has been seduced to the dark side by Kendrick, it’s ultimately his true love Fiona who talks him down and breaks him free of the madness. If the show was trying to depict the murky, gray world that spies operate in, it was not executed with the sharp efficiency of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.
The True Charm of ‘Burn Notice’ Is Its Cast
The long-term, serialized spy plots of Burn Notice grew increasingly more convoluted and overwrought as the show progressed. Despite that, it became clear the true charm of the show was the dynamic cast and their amazing chemistry together. The spy machinations were not always great, but the likes of Donovan, Anwar, Gless, and Campbell were always up to the task. Coby Bell also becomes a welcome addition to the main family and group as Jesse Porter; a spy whom Michael inadvertently burns, putting the shoe on the other foot.
The actors were great, and they exhibited sizzling chemistry working off of one another. The fun of Burn Notice was not necessarily the spy plots and big reveals, but more about the ridiculous jams Michael, Sam, and Fiona would get into every week, and how they get pulled out of the fire by the skins of their teeth. There was also the appeal of what new wacky personas would they take on for their latest assignments. Frequently, they would use their expertise as spies or covert operatives to adopt fake aliases or disguises, which means the actors would play around and adopt different characters and accents every week. Another fun aspect was the depiction of how the main crew often had to improvise their spy equipment with cheap household items they had on hand since they didn’t have unlimited financial resources to fund their work. The spies of Burn Notice didn’t have Q-Branch to make them a bunch of fancy, high-tech gadgets. They had to jury-rig their own crude equipment with whatever was available in a given episode. It offered a more grounded, believable look at the spy world over one that was overly glamorous, high-tech, and ritzy. That was where the real excitement, joy, and beauty of watching Burn Notice came from, but the well ran dry with the spy subplots about halfway through the series.
The show’s exploration of Michael’s estranged, dysfunctional family was another highlight of the series. Michael came from an abusive, toxic home, which motivated him to join the military and later become a skilled CIA agent. After returning home to Miami, he goes to therapy with his mother, and they work on their relationship together. Donovan skillfully performs the show’s more dramatic moments, working through his unresolved issues with his family. Gless was exceptional throughout the series as well as Michael’s loving, yet flawed, mother. The actors alone are worth recommending a look at Burn Notice.
For viewers who want to check out or revisit the show, all seven seasons of the show are streaming now on Hulu.
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Khushi Patel is a science fiction author who lives in Austin, Texas. She has published three novels, and her work has been praised for its originality and imagination. Khushi is a graduate of Rice University, and she has worked as a software engineer. She is a member of the Science Fiction Writers of America, and her books have been nominated for several awards.
