The Closer and Burn Notice

I am so happy that the new season has started for my 2 favorite TV shows, The Closer (TNT Mondays at 9), and Burn Notice (USA Thursdays at 10). The Closer is a police show starring Kyra Sedgwick as LAPD Deputy Police Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson. I like pretty much everything about this show: the characters are great (Brenda Leigh is from the South, and she has the funniest way of saying, "Thank you, thank you very much," when she's told people to do things they don't want to do); the cases are interesting and exciting (there's plenty of blowing things up and smacking people around); and the ongoing plot line involving Brenda's romance with Fritz, an FBI agent, is alway entertaining. If you haven't watched this show before, and you get hooked on it, you might want to check out the DVD sets of the first three seasons from the library.

Burn Notice is another adventure show, but instead of police, the main character, Michael, is an ex-FBI agent who was "burned" by the agency, dumped in Miami with his bank accounts frozen and no chance of ever working for the government again. What he does have are a lot of skills as a spy, and an ex-IRA agent who loves to blow things up as an ex-girlfriend, and a best friend who is a washed-up ex-military intelligence operative who started out keeping an eye on Michael for the feds. Does it sound complicated? It is. Each episode involves a case that Michael takes on to earn money and help out some poor unfortunate who's being taken advantage of by the mob or some other criminals, and also the progress Michael makes in trying to find out who "burned" him and why. The cast is excellent, and includes Sharon Gless as his cigarette-smoking, wise-cracking mother. Take a look at Ask a Spy: http://www.usanetwork.com/series/burnnotice/video/spytips/index.html