I watch too much TV

The latest show on the Tivo...

Burn Notice on USA. For those of you who don't know anything about the show, it's about a spy who gets fired, except when spies get fired they get burned - cut off from all contact, frozen out of all bank accounts and assets, and otherwise just dropped off the face of civilized earth.

It's an interesting premise, and in execution it's a bit like James Bond meets MacGyver meets CSI. In tone, it's very similar to Psych, USA's other good show (I like Monk, but I can't really get into it, despite the presence of mega-cutie Traylor Howard). There's a certain amount of snarky camp, which makes it more fun and light-hearted than you would expect from the show's subject matter.

[As an aside, it certainly seems like USA has a "house style" for its new wave of original shows. Starting with Monk (San Francisco) and moving through Psych (Santa Barbara) and now Burn Notice (Miami), the USA mystery shows take place in bright, sunny locales and feature a more light-hearted tone than similar shows on other networks. Despite my propensity for dark humor (or perhaps because of it), I do like the contrast these shows provide. Sometimes, a bad pun is actually funny.]

Aside from the clever writing, Burn Notice has two more things going for it: Bruce Campbell and Gabrielle Anwar.

If I need to explain the significance of Bruce Campbell to you, you won't appreciate it even after I've finished. Gimme some sugar, baby.

As for the fairer of the duo, Gabrielle Anwar has been setting hearts aflame since Scent of a Woman (at least in the U.S.). On Burn Notice, she scorches the small screen as a slightly-psycho, completely-sexy, former IRA bomber. There's just something about bad girls, isn't there? The kind of girl that gets turned on by fistfights and gunplay? No? Oh, I guess that's just me.          :)

Anyway, the best part of this (slightly late) review of this new show? We're only three episodes in. And they're rebroadcasting the first few episodes, so it's not too late to jump onboard.

What? Like you want to spend more time outside during the summer or something...