Burn Notice: The Fix
One of the more enjoyable hours of the week is spent watching USA’s buoyant spy series BURN NOTICE, the ongoing story of Michael Westen, the government agent who’s suddenly no longer that, thus left stranded in Miami with no identity, no money and no explanation. Although there’s plenty of action and espionage, its greatest assets are its smart scripting and sharp humor.
Thankfully, both those elements are ported over to the show’s first original tie-in novel, Tod Goldberg’s BURN NOTICE: THE FIX. The highest praise one could give it would be to say it’d make a terrific episode. And it would. The worst thing is that’s not already an episode, but hey, it’s the next best thing.
The gist of the show is that while Michael tries to find out who’s issue his burn notice that’s left him unemployed and in quite the bind, he’s forced to use his spy skills for freelance surveillance and security gigs to get by. Many times, he doesn’t want to do them at all, but being good-hearted and high-principled, he always relents, submitting to the pressures placed upon him by either his ex-Navy SEAL best friend Sam or his bounty hunting ex-girlfriend Fiona.
And so it goes here, as Sam ropes him into helping one Cricket O’Connor, a philanthropic socialite in her 50s who’s been scammed out of millions by her squirrely new lover. She hasn’t seen him in months, but goons show up at her door every 30 days to collect cash he supposedly owes some opium dealer. Michael knows the guy isn’t who he says he is, so finding out his true colors is going to take lots of sniffing around. Meanwhile, some Russians want to kill our hero, under untrue assumptions.
THE FIX benefits from Michael’s witty narration, and from the very first line, Goldberg apes that. You can hear the actor (Jeffrey Donovan) speaking every word in your head, and Goldberg doesn’t miss a beat. The turns of phrase, the sarcasm, the devil-may-care attitude — he has it all nailed. Someone needs to put him on the writing staff, unless it means he wouldn’t have the time to crank out a couple more of these. —Rod Lott
“Goldberg apes that. You can hear the actor (Jeffrey Donovan) speaking every word in your head…”
That’s my biggest beef with this series. The way the lead actor reads the narration just seems to make me want to hit something, or hire someone else to hit something, so I can watch and not hurt my hand. It’s the same way if I’m surfing and stop on Sex and the City for a minute. Hopefully they’ll never make a series called “He Narrated, She Narrated” with alternate narrations from Sarah Jessica Parker and the guy from Burn.
I wanted to like this series, because I like Monk (although the joke has worn off quite a bit by now) and I really like Psych, which cares less about the mystery than the humor.
Like all character-driven series, if you hate the lead, yeah — you’re gonna have a big problem. I understand (but don’t agree about BURN), because the other shows you mentioned do that to me, particularly SEX & THE CITY, which makes me physically ill just thinking about it. I don’t like MONK, either, but not to a degree of hate — just something that doesn’t sit well.
If you’re not willing to hit something yourself, than you ought to keep your thoughts to yourself. There’s nothing wrong with the narration of Jeffery Donovan. It worked in Magnum PI and it worked in other shows. Sometimes it doesn’t. Sex & The City is many things including vapid at times, but the narration was never the problem with that show either. You should just turn the sound off and use the closed captioning.
“If you’re not willing to hit something yourself, than you ought to keep your thoughts to yourself.”
What does that mean? Hit something myself? I don’t understand. I understand about keeping my thoughts to myself, though. If you say something that people disagree with, they want you to shut up. What is it about my opinion, Shane, that threatens you so much.
Grow up.
And yes, the narration worked fine in Magnum, PI.
Keep my thoughts to myself. God, what a child you are.
Rod, I don’t really hate the lead. I actually like him, and I watch the show from time to time. It’s the narration I don’t like. It sounds like someone lecturing a small child. It just grates on me. Same thing with Sex and the City. It’s the actual cadences of her voice when she’s narrating that make me cringe. The show itself, isn’t my bag, baby, but that’s a whole other subject.
I finally read this. Pretty good for the most part, but you can tell the author is the brother of the author of the MOnk series. Sometimes Michael’s voice is identical to Natalie Teeger’s. That’s not good.