Morning Vent, 9 June 2010

 Probably what Fiona looked like in junior high...

    Woke up with the leg a bit stiff this AM. Still taking the meds; I have 3 or 4 more days of pills to burn through. Tomorrow, I go back to the doctor to have the leg checked out again, so we'll see.
    I started watching the first season of Burn Notice. I had seen the first season a while back and really enjoyed it. I'm plowing through the first season again. The series puts a James Bond spin on the old "hero who helps out those in trouble" schtick that has been mined so thoroughly in series television. Burn Notice's Michael Westen, portrayed by Jeffrey Donovan, is the spiritual descendant of Have Gun Will Travel's Paladin and Kung Fu's Kwai Chang Caine. As an unjustly disavowed secret agent, he has been exiled to exotic yet tacky Miami, Florida. While he struggles to uncover the who and why of his burn notice, he ekes out a living as a freelance security operative. A host of grudge-holding enemies still want him dead and shady government agenices want him to keep quiet. Complicating matters is a dysfunctional, semi-estranged family composed of a tough, chain smoking Mom, played by Sharon Gless, and petty criminal younger brother, played by Seth Peterson.
   He also has allies: His former girlfriend, Fiona, coincidentally also a former IRA hitgirl, and a semi-retired fellow spook, Sam Axe.
    What makes the series for me, more than the deftly staged action sequences, tightly plotted stories or snappy dialogue, is the dry narration Donovan provides as commentary on the action, complete with protips for the would-be secret agent. Think of the series as a darker, grittier Magnum, PI.