Jeffrey Donovan Fans

Life was never like this for James Bond.On the breezy summer series “Burn Notice,” Michael Westen is a spy down on his luck. He’s been “burned,” literally: cut from the ranks by the U.S. government with no prior notice or reason. Jeffrey Donovan, who plays Weston, sums it up succinctly.

“‘Burn Notice’ is an actual term used by government agencies to tell spies that they are no longer affiliated with the government. All their assets have been killed. They are left with no identity, no way to travel and no money. It’s kind of like catching the plague,” he says.

Westen has no place to go to but home Miami where life is anything but a beach. There, he faces familiar nightmares. For starters, there’s his mother, Madeline (Sharon Gless), a hypochondriac, and his ex-girlfriend, an IRA terrorist named Fiona (Gabrielle Anwar). The 11-episode summer series stars Jeffrey Donovan (”Touching Evil”) as spy Michael Westen. He’s just been “burned”: excised from his agency with no prior notice or reason.

For several years, Michael Westen (Jeffrey Donovan) has been a covert?spy working for the NSA, CIA and other government agencies.

Then one day, during an undercover operation, he receives an unexpected answer from his cell: Michael Westen has been blacklisted.? In other words, someone has put a “burn notice” on him.? The U.S government has frozen his accounts and destroyed his credit, but can’t take away his skills.

Now in sunny Miami, Michael must deal with issues from his past in the form of his neurotic mother, Madeline (Sharon Glass), who always tried to reunite Michael with his brother and his ex-girlfriend Fiona (Gabrielle Anwar), a trigger-happy ex-IRA operative.?

“The whole television series business is a strange world where I’m not at a place where people just give me my own TV show,” mused Jeffrey Donovan, a good man with 20 years of professional acting experience who finally made his mark as the star of the cult cable cop show “Touching Evil” (2004).

Unfortunately, “Touching Evil” - where Donovan played a cop who took a bullet to the head, and spent 10 minutes technically dead before roaring back as as nerve-wrecked slob - was down and out after 13 episodes. Fortunately, the show’s producers only had fond memories of his work when they were developing “Burn Notice,” the saga of a high-level CIA operative suddenly axed without due cause.

USA Burn Notice (10 p.m. Thursdays)

Four million people tuned in to the first two episodes of this 21st-century update of “The Equalizer,” with dry wit from both Jeffrey Donovan and Bruce Campbell and a hot, hot Miami setting.

TV Audiences ‘Notice’ a New Summer Series
The USA Network for the next few months will take over the airwaves with their returning summer series’ “The 4400,” “The Dead Zone,” “Monk” and “Psych” but this time the channel added to their elite schedule the wonderfully dry wit-filled, spy show “Burn Notice.”

Continuing on with their knack for introducing the summer television viewing audience to unique and entertaining USA programming, this summer’s delightful addition follows Michael Westen, a government Special Ops guy black listed at a rather inconvenient time during an assignment. After getting out of his predicament Westen makes his way back to the U.S.

Now back in the U.S. and stuck in Miami with his bank accounts frozen, everyone from the government ignoring him and with his mother and ex-girlfriend a little too close for comfort, Westen must make a living taking odd jobs as a private investigator. While the idea of the show isn’t anything new, the delivery - acting and writing - makes “Burn Notice” a pleasurable choice for Thursday nights.