Burn Notice News

The cast of Burn Notice.

Series Vitals

Created by: Matt Nix
Starring: Jeffrey Donovan, Gabrielle Anwar, Bruce Campbell, and Sharon Gless
Genre: Comedy-Drama, Drama, Action
Channel: USA Network
First Episode: June 28, 2007
Location: Miami, FL

Show Premise

A “burn notice” refers to the notices issued by intelligence agencies to discredit or make known the dismissal of agents or sources that are believed to have become unreliable. When a spy is burned it is made so they have no previous work history, their assets are frozen; and their entire identity erased. Typically, wherever they are left they have to stay because they have no money or identity to arrange travel. In rare cases, the spy is actually killed. The television series is a first-person narrative from the viewpoint of covert-operations agent Michael Westen, played by Jeffrey Donovan.

After Westen had to cut out on a Nigerian operation that went south because of the unexpected non-cooperation of his U.S. contact, he gets on a plane and finds himself in his hometown of Miami, Florida. Westen’s ex-girlfriend, Fiona Glenanne, is tending to him but he finds he has been abandoned by all his normal intelligence contacts and under continuous surveillance with his personal assets frozen. After a great deal of effort to reach his U.S. government handler leads to an reluctant admission that someone powerful wants him out of action and to remain in Miami. He is made aware that if he leaves the city he will be hunted down and taken into custody, but if he stays in Miami he can remain somewhat free. Obsessed with finding out who burned him and why, Westen offers his services as a freelance spy to anyone in Miami who can pay him so that he can fund his investigation into why he was burned. Throughout the series Westen battles and outsmarts an assortment of con artists, mobsters, contract killers, professional thieves, drug traffickers, sex traffickers, arms dealers, kidnappers and war criminals. Burn Notice frequently uses ingenious methods to do the job of more expensive, and hard-to-obtain items.