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Matt Nix Reveals Spy Riffs and MacGyverisms in Burn Notice Season 3
by Troy Rogers
 After two successful seasons in Miami, how popular has USA Network's Burn Notice become? Well, on most conference calls journalists are a afforded one question with a customary follow-up or two. When there's a lot of people on the line waiting to ask a question, not only does time limit you to one question but it's also a good gauge of a show's popularity. Such was the case this week when we hopped on the line to talk to Burn Notice creator Matt Nix who was eager to fill everyone in on what fans can expect during season three of the Miami set spy series, starring Jeffrey Donovan, Gabrielle Anwar, Sharon Gless, and Bruce Campbell.
Although we only had a few brief minutes with Matt Nix to find out what's in the Season 3 Burn Notice goodie bag, what we want to most is whether we can expect a few new tricks like our favorite shows of old, specifically the humorous type we used to see in MacGyver. To our surprise, Nix and crew will be taking an ironic page from the lives of two former spies later in the season while also giving a nod to one of the biggest action movies of all-time.
And since we only had time for one question, we wanted to make it a good one.
THE DEADBOLT: Do you have any favorite spy tricks and MacGyverisms, or are there any you would like to show off this season?
 MATT NIX: [laughs] Yeah, there’s one episode. One of my favorite spy riffs is the 12th episode this season and we’ve been thinking for a long time how to do an episode that centers on this. And basically a lot of the greatest spies, and this is a voice over in the episode, but a lot of the greatest spies in history have been people who were somehow managed to be put in charge of finding themselves. Like Robert Hanssen in the F.B.I. was in charge of finding the mole in the F.B.I. and he was the mole in the F.B.I.. Aldrich Aimes was a counter intelligence guy at the C.I.A. in charge of finding the mole in the C.I.A., and he was the mole in the C.I.A.. And it’s just delicious.
I mean, I should say those were both horrible stains on the government and intelligence. But that said, they make for great stories and so in the 12th episode we get a chance to put Michael in the position of a guy who’s hunting himself. I don’t need to get into it much more than that, but suffice it to say that that’s an episode where Michael actually gets to have a little bit of fun. I mean, it’s not like he’s laughing manically but you actually get to see that he appreciates the irony of his situation and it’s just a really fun episode.
For the MacGyverisms, the 13th episode is. Well, it’s sort of the Burn Notice answer to Die Hard and we really wanted to look at - We’re looking at the idea that running around with a gun in a building full of hostages was perhaps - You know, it makes for a lot of action but it’s also a great way to get a lot of people killed. So we thought, "Okay, what would Michael do in that situation?" And the answers is; he would do a lot of really cool things, really subtlety and really hidden and so we have - I don’t want to give too many things away, but basically watching Michael sneak around in a situation like that, doing those [types of things]. He builds some amazing things and comes up with some amazing ways of turning the tables on the bad guys without them even knowing it. And it’s a lot of fun.
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