Burn Notice

Which is a comment you will seldom find in my reviews.

First of all, the concept. The whole idea of a "burn notice" forcing a spy to take roots in a community is very clever. Really.

And the casting. I call this "Leprechaun Casting" because Donovan's career both before and even after the show was unspectacular. But in this part, in a successful series which ran for years, he was nothing less than brilliant. Almost as though elves pulled him out nowhere just for this role, and then disappeared into the forest with him after.

The setting is also clever, relying on an old Hollywood adage which says, to improve your odds, cast in a city that people wish they lived in. Check.

Even the voice-over works and works well. Voice-over seems like an easy thing to pull off, but in fact it isn't. Which is why it dropped out of favor in the 1940s and has been used very sparingly ever since.

Estrogen content? Check. Gabrielle Anwar, in a part which really is more a sidekick than a love interest, manages to "sashay" between scenes (yet another word I do not use often) and also manages to give the impression that she is on "slow simmer" even when all she is doing is mixing explosives or hot-wiring a car. (If you are a male reader, you will get that.)

Supporting cast? Bruce Campbell plays his role like he was already happily retired and the casting director begged him to come out of retirement just for this part, and then gave him permission to sit down and drink while delivering his lines. (Which may be the way it actually happened, I don't know).

I will confess it took about three episodes for me to get hooked. Like I said off the top, this is a one of a kind. But it is a fun ride.