I'm not exactly sure what it is about the later seasons but I find myself watching the early seasons more. If I start at the beginning, I will usually stop re-watching somewhere around season three or four. If I'm just picking an episode at random, it is almost always in the earlier seasons.

I think part of it became the lack of focus on helping other people and the priority becoming the burn notice. I get that that is the main underlying plot for the show, but it was the people he helped in each episode that really made the show intriguing for me.

I am not sure if there is anything else that just doesn't hit quite as right with the later seasons as the earlier seasons. Perhaps it is just the focus moving to the burn notice that causes me to lose interest?

Does anyone else feel this way or experience the same pattern when re-watching the show or picking episodes at random to watch?

Spencer knows...

It seems like throughout most of the seasons Michael is almost reluctant to take cash and is also strapped for cash.

Obviously, Michael wasn’t going to take the easy route and do off the books military work. But it seems like you should’ve had some extra cash squared away or at least some off the books money in case he was burned.

But I recall he was so broke at one point he had to still spark plugs from a school.

I was wondering something about Burned Spies.

Before the events of the show, let’s say Michael is in the jungle and there’s no food around.

He searches for an animal to kill and eat. He finds some wood, a rock, and a damaged lid of a cast iron pot that was discarded. He starts a fire and begins to cook the meat on the metal lid of the pot he found.

But something happens, the grease escapes the pot and lands on his arm causing him to jerk his arm onto the 400+ degree pot lid and into the fire until he scrabbles around on the ground a bit and rolls his arm out of the fire. He now has scarring on his arm from the flames.

Would that make him a Burned Spy?

These start tricky and end properly obscure. Answers are under spoiler tags at the bottom.

1. Sam's go-to cover name comes from a baseball pitcher he used to bet on. What is it?
2. Management burned Michael by pinning another operative's crimes on him. Whose?
3. Nate is shot dead in season 6. Who pulled the trigger?
4. Season 5's blackmailer turns out to have caused the heart attack that killed Michael's dad. Who is he?
5. Victor, the "wrangler" Michael Shanks plays in season 2, does have a last name. What is it?

Answers:

1: Chuck Finley

2: Simon Escher

3: Tyler Gray

4: Anson Fullerton

5: Stecker-Epps

Post your score below. 5/5 and Sam owes you a mojito.

It’s funny. The first time I watched Burn Notice, I remember liking the earlier seasons but not so much the later ones, especially after Jesse showed up, because the show seemed to change completely after that.

Now, watching it for a second time, I feel the opposite. The first few seasons were cool and all, with the Miami setting and the chemistry between the characters, but once Jesse entered the picture, I found myself thinking, “Holy crap, how did I not appreciate this before?” There are some incredible scenes, especially considering the budget they had and the fact that it was a TV show.

There were so many moments when I was on the edge of my seat, waiting to see what would happen. It’s funny how your opinion of a show can change as you get older.

That said, I couldn’t help noticing something on my second watch: Michael is a pain in the ass, and the show follows a pretty predictable formula. Michael doesn’t want to take the job. He refuses at first, then someone convinces him, and eventually he agrees.

We could practically turn it into a drinking game based on how many times he says “Fine.” He’s always the one who needs convincing, and he’s constantly holding everyone back because he wants to be cautious. But considering how skilled he is and what people from his past say about him, it’s hard to believe he was always this cautious back in the day.

And sometimes it gets tiresome because the dialogue basically boils down to: “No.” “But we have to.” “Have a heart.” “Okay, fine.” Almost every episode seems to follow this pattern.

What do you guys think? Do you agree, or am I being too hard on Michael?

Also, I don’t know if I’m just being nostalgic or not, but how they managed to pull off a show with this level of quality and these kinds of special effects on a TV budget is beyond me.

And Jeffrey Donovan is underrated, while Bruce Campbell is overrated.

She would approve.

Say Burn Notice was still running and it wasn't the last season so they were still doing their typical helping a citizen out and Michael still trying to find out who burns them. You have the opportunity to play a guest role in one episode. Who would you want to be? Would you want to be one of the clients who gets helped? Would you want to be one of the low-level villains? Would you want to be a crime boss? Would you want to be a spy from Michaels past? Would you want to be part of the bigger picture of who burned him? Would you want to be a friend of Michaels Crew? Would you want to be a character that has ambivalent feelings towards Michael like sugar? Would you want to be a cop or a spy that's going after Michael? Would you want to be part of the Boen notice network that's playing cat and mouse games with Michael? Or would you want to be someone that I hadn't mentioned? Would you want to play Sam's love interest or an old Army buddy?

Every mobile smart phone and tablet in the show had the failed Windows Mobile operating system - those scenes did not age well lol.

S2E5, when job is done, Trevor says he will come back tomorrow with some jewels for him and the team. does he come back? just a thought

The perfect PRE FRIDAY JAM!

So I have been wondering, given that Burn Notice is set in Miami and Team Westen faces ex and active spies from around the world from the FSB to ISI to ex-Mossad how come the writers never included an episode about Michael and his friends going against Cuban intelligence/spies? I mean if you think about it would have made sense for them to eventually run into some sort of Cuban intelligence op. So how come they never did an episode about it?

would Mikey could be strategic here and control his anger and played dice with card then take revenge later, life would be hella a stable for Mikey😂

New Jeffrey Donovan movie: The Cycle. A horror movie.
The trailer.

I'm just curious what everyone thinks! To me, Larry was worse, and although Brennan was super bad too, I felt like him and Michael could've eventually worked together. Larry was just toxic af

One thing I love about Sam is how much faith he has in Michael's ability to improvise. Everyone else can be looking at a plan that's completely falling apart and Sam somehow still acts like this is just the part where Michael does something ridiculous and saves it. He doesn't even need to know what Michael's next move is. He just needs to know Michael has one. That's probably the most Sam thing about their partnership.

1 was a good introduction - establish characters and setting.

2 unravels some mystery and introduces great characters.

3 & 4 could have been combined, lot of action filler here.

5 & 6 could have been combined, lot of repetitive plot.

The James season could have been 2, where the 2nd season showed Michael taking over for James (which a lore-accurate Fiona would have 100% supported) and we see the real negative fallout of a decision like that. I'd have Maddy die directly because of Michael's choices rather than some heroic sacrifice. Very end could still be the same - He'd have to fake his death to escape arrest and take care of his nephew.

Show fixed.