Burn Notice

I decided to start watching Burn Notice recently.

First, the goods :)

• I like the format of a mixture of an overarching plot arc of Michael trying to dig deeper about who "burned" him and for what purpose, and the more mundane day-to-day business of picking up a few bucks here and there helping people out of a jam. It's kind of like Leverage in a way.


• Sam and Fiona really round out the "crew" Michael has, and in a good way. I like Sam's world-weary wise-assery and Fiona's occasional mercurialness. :)


• The bad guys sometimes prove interesting when they just manage to slip through Michael's gambits only to be caught at the end anyway.

Now for the bads.

• The family relations in this series are absolutely toxic. I particularly don't like that Michael seems to be a willing doormat for his brother, who's a known slacker and somewhat unintelligent to boot, and for his mother, who purposely manipulates him to get whatever emotional satisfaction she derives from getting him to drop everything at once and rush over to see her.


• Fiona meddling with the interactions between Michael and his mother.


• Finally, Michael's behavior. Specifically I just cannot stand how he gets this total douchebaggily fake smile on his face whenever he gets stuck with something he doesn't want to do. And I know it's fake because he uses the exact same smile with people he's using a cover identity to interact with. C'mon, producers, you couldn't have had Donovan adopt a broader repertoire of facial expressions between darkly-frowny, neutral, and fake-smiley?

Verdict: While it's not as memorable as Breaking Bad, it's at least a series I can sit down with and spend a few hours watching here and there to kill time. :)