The end of summer means goodbye to a few of my favorite things, a list that does not include garden wasps but does include "Burn Notice" on USA.
This week's episode, which airs Thursday at the end of a day-long "Burn Notice" marathon on USA (yes, that was a TiVo alert), is the second-to-last for another all too brief season of this easy-sipping Mohito of action, spy intrigue and laughably trivial family drama set in urban and suburban Florida. (Above: Tim Matheson guest-stars as an ex-spook you don't want to be around when he's holding a sharp tool.)
It's the second-to-last time in 2008 we'll see Michael Westen (Jeffrey Donovan), a spy who keeps his cool in the Miami heat because he's in deep freeze. As season two ends, Michael is no closer to figuring out why he was exiled from the intelligence agency that employed him. So he just keeps using his smarts, and two semi-trustworthy associates, and keeps helping one hapless schlub after another out of danger.
Perhaps you've wondered why this show isn't on network television, pulling in the big numbers. I don't know the answer to that. But I can guess. In fact, I can imagine a conversation between the executives at NBC (which owns the USA Network) and the producers of "Burn Notice" going something like this:
"Hey guys, thanks for coming to this emergency meeting."
"Anything for the people who renewed 'America's Got Talent.' What's on your mind?"
"Well, seems we forgot to put any new shows on the NBC fall schedule. Uh, we do have this one program starring Christian Slater and two Chevrolets, but not much else. We were so surprised when CBS showed up with a full slate. Weren't we, guys? I'd only just arrived in the Seychelles when I got that message. Thank God for the CrackBerry, huh, am I right?"
"So you'd like us to make more episodes of 'Burn Notice' for NBC," says one producer, who sounds a lot like Michael on the show. "Uh, guys, that's not a good idea. We have this very interesting storyline involving Carla..."
"Oh, we love Carla! She's the babe on that other cable network we own, right?"
"Yes, Tricia Helfer is also on 'Battlestar.' Anyway, Michael has been trying to figure out if she's the key to getting his old job back, and we've written this outstanding cliffhanger involving them for the Sept. 18 finale. We feel pretty confident it will tide our viewers over while we recharge our batteries."
"Hey, you know a great place to do that? The Seychelles. It's like a Caribbean nation, only it's in Africa. Or it's near Africa. A safe distance from Africa."
"Okay, thanks for that."
(Awkward pause.)
"Hey, did we mention that we can pay you a network salary? And you'd have a production budget commensurate with our other shows?"
"Like 'Medium'? Uh, guys, I hate to say it but we'll take cable. We know how networks are. Pretty soon you're going to make us find a new sidekick for Michael who's half the age of Bruce Campbell's character, Sam. And the thing about our audience is, they love Bruce Campbell. We love Bruce Campbell. And Sharon Gless, who plays Michael's mom, who's constantly guilt-tripping him? How will a 65-something actress play on network TV? I don't think we want to find out."
"OK, you've got us there. Listen, if there is anything we can do?"
"Well, there is one thing. You know how you brought back 'American Gladiators' and 'Knight Rider' and are looking at other NBC shows from the 1980s?"
"Yes?"
"Promise us you won't bring back 'Miami Vice.'"
You forgot the other half of the dialog
"Remember when we used psych and monk as sunday night life vests during the writers strike to defend nbc against reruns of desp. housewifes"?
"Yes the ratings were about as good as Americas got talent"
"Now remeber when we made the new series americas toughest jobs and got worse ratings on a weeknight on NBC than the cable ratings of monk and psych, closer to the CW.
"wait that was just last week"
"Duh, it's just another example of good shows NBC has on the wrong network ie Burn notice, psych, monk, in plain sight, project runway ect.
"oh I get it NBC has its ratings in the gutter becasue they overspend there resources on their cable networks taking away millions of eyeballs who are watching USA, Oxygen, bravo, or not cnbc and msnbc and then wondering why nbc can't kick off the ratings bucket stuck on their own head"
The worst enemy to the network is them selfs
Posted by: Nate | September 17, 2008 at 10:48 PM