Burn Notice: Old Friends
By fred | July 22, 2007
(S01E04) I have never been quit enthusiastic about Burn Notice, maybe even the opposite. Despite all that, after last episode I felt better than I usually do, like it was the lesser of all episodes so far.
The way I feel about the show changed again apparently, and I am not so sure it is in favor of the show. Usually, watching the show I felt that there was some good things, some very bad things, and a bunch of things you can put up with if you’re not too regarding.
This time, things were different. Not good different, though.
During this one I didn’t feel like there were any good things no more. And I didn’t even feel there were those awfully bad ones either, to tell the truth. Instead, it felt more like the show had finally found a way to blend all things into one mix of everything, like the show had successfully found its own tone.
It’s no more a collection of plots, jokes, characters, etc some of which are good, some of which are bad. It’s now one more homogeneous mix, only it doesn’t taste so good.
Because if there were still a couple of things I liked, they didn’t actually feel as “good” as before, and I can’t even think of an actual couple of them. But I did like how, when unsuccessfully trying to break the window of a car, to kidnap the bad guy’s brother, Michael eventually just took his gun out : “Wow, this is really well-made : Open the door, open the door!”
But the bad things, that you’ve already seen so many times and can see coming from so far away it’s not even remotely amusing, plenty of those. Plenty.
Like the brother, and how he tries to play to bad guy but doesn’t know what he’s doing, or the way they approach the bad guys and get the girl in the end, or Fiona, even things that in the first episodes were good points, are turning back on them.
At first I kinda liked that he wasn’t just registering as PI. But now it’s always the same old ways, his mom calls and of course he rushes there even if he says he don’t want to, only to find that there’s this friend, who happens to need help. Or the MacGyver-like moments, that used to have a something that made them fun, but not anymore.
Maybe I’m just getting bored with the show, because I never hide that it wasn’t a good one and I was never a fan of it, but I’m getting bored watching it. And it always goes the same way, with the same jokes. Find a new job while having some ghost of his past resurfacing, a joke or two about how Fiona hates Sam and would like him dead, or wants to sleep with Michael, or simply always has the same & only solution for everything : shoot them, blow it up. Or don’t you have the balls?
Then the plan fails, something didn’t go as planned or someone didn’t do what (s)he should have, so they have to make last minute adjustments. Then everything get a nice happy ending, just like that. And the ghost from the past keeps that past and its mysterious Burn Notice roots in the dark.
All that, and it’s never funny, or entertaining. It’s not, I’m simply not enjoying this, at all.
Remember MacGyver? or The A-Team? Burn Notice feels like a new version of shows like that. You don’t have the writing quality of good shows, it’s not really funny, relies on the same stories or characters known for years… I liked watching those shows, twenty years ago. But now, I want more (quality).
On a side note : after the pilot, I thought Michael was probably burned by his dad. Well, now I would put my money on his mother. I wouldn’t be surprise if we were to learn that she isn’t just a defenseless mother, somewhat clueless about her son’s job or life. Maybe she actually knows a lot more about all of this, even has been and still is involved, maybe she is the one who burned him, and specifically asked that he was dropped nowhere else but in Miami.
So that he would come back to her, they could fix of few old grudges or likes, maybe she could even reunite the whole family, you know, all the stuff she wants to do before she actually goes away. Cause she learned she had cancer and wouldn’t be around for that long….
Posted in Reviews
Shows: Burn Notice
