STUDIO: Fox
RELEASE DATE: June 17, 2008
STARRING: Jeffrey Donovan, Gabrielle Anwar, Bruce Campbell, and Sharon Gless
CREATED BY: Matt Nix
FEATURES: Scene-specific audio commentary for each episode featuring show creator Matt Nix and stars Jeffrey Donovan, Gabrielle Anwar, Bruce Campbell and Sharon Gless
Gag reel
Character montage
Action montage
Girls Gones Burn Notice montage
Jeffrey Donovan audition footage
Gabrielle Anwar audition footage

Last summer, the USA network struck ratings and publicity gold with a pair of shows that became the two biggest series of the summer - Burn Notice and The Starter Wife. The former returns this July for a second season that I can almost guarantee will do even better the first. Why? Burn Notice has continued to smoke even while it's been off the air. More and more people are talking about it, recommending it to friends, and anticipating its return, and its fanbase will continue to grow as viewers catch up on the first season, hitting DVD this week. Another reason I expect this fire to spread is simple - Burn Notice showed improvement with nearly every episode of the first frame, a pattern I expect to continue into the second. What started as a show that sometimes wore its desire to be cool a little too openly on its sleeve developed into a show that was just effortlessly suave. Jeffrey Donovan got better with every episode, Bruce Campbell was allowed some unexpected range, and Gabrielle Anwar turned into one of the most riveting supporting actresses on TV. In one season you can watch Burn Notice develop from a show with potential to one that far surpasses how far I thought it could go after the first few episodes. It's still not perfect television, but when it's clicking on all cylinders, it comes damn close. Considering how many shows go from "good" to "great" in their second season, after they've had the off-season to watch game tape and fix the flaws, I anticipate the return of Burn Notice next month as much as any show this year. (Adding Battlestar's Tricia Helfer to the cast doesn't hurt...with Tricia and Gabrielle, this is a frontrunner for the sexiest show on TV.)

Catch up with the first 11 episodes on DVD from Twentieth Century Fox over four discs. Spreading the episodes out that much leads to a higher cost than an 11-episode series should probably have, but it also allows for a better-than-average video transfer. A lot of people still don't have USA in High-Def, so just the widescreen picture and 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround track will make reivisiting Burn Notice feel like a new experience. Jeffrey Donovan plays Michael Westen, an intelligence expert/spy, who finds himself on the other end of a pretty horrible scenario - he gets burned. As the tagline for the show explains, "Spies don't get fired, they get burned." What that means is that someone sent Michael up the river. He's essentially trapped in Miami with his ex Fiona (Gabrielle Anwar), buddy Sam (Bruce Campbell), and his mother (Sharon Gless). With its lead character unable to leave until he finds out who burned him and why, Burn Notice turns into a "mystery of the week" show, as Michael uses his prodigious spy skills to help people in need.

USA has found massive success by taking the mystery concept of hit shows like CSI and Law & Order and giving them their own unique spin with series like Monk, Psych, In Plain Sight, and Burn Notice. You don't necessarily need to have seen every episode of Burn Notice to enjoy how Michael gets some poor needy soul out of a different dillemma each week. But about halfway through the season, Burn Notice develops a perfect balance and rhythm. Each episode gives viewers just enough of the overall arc (who burned Michael and why), while also providing very clever weekly mysteries like a saving a girl from a sex slave ring and stopping arms dealers. And every single cast member of the show gets better every week. I still say Sharon Gless is being wasted and either needs more plot of her own or needs to be discarded, but Donovan, Campbell, and Anwar have developed some of the best chemistry on TV. I just can't wait to see what they do next.