Just a few short days ago, Netflix finally got the long awaited Season Six on the Stream (coincidentally just as it came out on DVD) and I've been binging on it. It's always weird timing when USA Network's action dramas hit as they do odd half/quarter-seasons with their shows like Psych, Burn Notice, et al.Still, good to see new episodes finally hit the queue and the narrative finally start to work on the Anson problem from last season... Anson (Jere Burns), of course, being the primary antagonist of season 5 and the head of the organization of corrupt and burned spies that got Michael Weston (Jeffrey Donovan) blacklisted from his Agency job in the first place at the start of the series.
In this particular episode, everything with Anson comes to a head as Michael and his team finally have a bead on the villain's location thanks to teaming up with the CIA traitor Rebecca (Kristanna Loken) in the episode previous.
I have likes and dislikes with the way it all plays out.
I really enjoyed having the core team split as Fiona (Gabrielle Anwar) is still in jail after giving herself up at the end of season 5 and Sam (Bruce Campbell) is sidelined by the CIA (but has his own adventure) due to the fact that they really dislike him over the events of his made for TV movie "The Fall of Sam Axe."It was also pretty cool having several familiar faces return as guest spots, including Michael's brother Nate (Seth Peterson) and the money launderer Barry (Paul Tei). While Nate's bits seemed a bit melodramatic, I suppose it was necessary for the conclusion that the writers wanted to go with at the end of the hour.
I can't really say that I was satisfied the way the Anson story ended up as it seemed just another way to force more conspiracy and even bigger baddies. Anson being the reason that everything had happened to Michael in the first place made me hope that they'd keep stringing the character along until the series finale, but I suppose they felt they had gone everywhere they could with the character and decided to move on to fry other fish.
On the whole, Burn Notice is an interesting combination of tense thrills and cheesy MacGyver-esque DIY adventure. It never ceases to make me smile whenever the narration goes into hardware store spycraft. I also really enjoy anything to do with Bruce Campbell. He's definitely the main reason that I've stuck with the series for so long... what with me being a long time fan of his work with Sam Raimi.I think that I'd be hard pressed to recommend the series unless the cheese is your thing as, at seven seasons (six on Netflix), it just seems to go on and on pointlessly, the only real arc being Michael and Fiona's relationship as it ebbs and flows over time. Still, it's fun and full of easy one-shot adventures that meet their quota of cheap thrills and explosions.
They really need to work on that CGI fire, though.
Until tomorrow, Potatoes~
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