TV Review: Burn Notice - Pilot - Page 2

Of course even though Fiona did a good thing for him, Westen can’t even thank her properly without making her angry. She goes off in a tizzy. The onscreen chemistry between Jeffrey Donovan and Gabrielle Anwar is there and I expect it will grow as the series progresses. They both seem to approach the roles with the same tongue-in-cheek panache and have a lot to offer physically — beauty and lethal martial arts moves.

Westen calls in a favor from an old friend, a female friend, and we get the feeling that there are a lot of those scattered around. This is obviously a guy who has a lot of history and none of it is pleasant. With his bank accounts frozen, Westen needs money. The only way he knows how to get money is through violently embracing danger. So he becomes an off-the-books private detective. More or less.

Bruce Campbell plays Sam Axe, another ex-government operative. He’s not exactly a proud kind of guy. He’s slumming around Miami and drinking booze provided by rich widows, rich divorcees, and rich wives (not his own). Still he doesn’t mind helping Westen with information. Campbell lives for roles like this, and he’s going to make the most of this one. He’s got a decent showing here, but he hasn’t really been set free at this point. I have a feeling it’s coming.

On top of that, Westen has to deal with his hypochondriac mother, Madeline. She tries to guilt him for not seeing his father during the final years of his life. Westen responds, telling her that he and his father hated each other. Nothing he could do would ever satisfy his father. And he didn’t feel guilty about not seeing his father because the last thing his father told him was that he would see him in Hell. Westen says he figures he and his father kind of had something “on the books” as a result.

Then there are the new living arrangements. Sam fixes him up with a guy that puts Westen in a loft next to a drug dealer named Sugar. That also becomes a source of conflict that runs throughout the episode and gets resolved in an entertaining fashion.

Article Author: Mel Odom

Mel Odom is the author of over 100 novels. Winner of the American Library Association's Alex Award for 2002 and runner-up for the Christy in 2005, he's written in several genres, including tie-in novels for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and novelizations of Blade, XXX, and Tomb Raider. …

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