Posted on: June 21, 2008 Posted by: James McQuiston Comments: 0

I love when shows have a tremendously short time from when the last episode of a specific season aired and the DVD set of that season was released. In this case, the last episode of the first season of Burn Notice aired on September 20th, and the box set was released on June 17th. Furthermore, the release of this boxed set ties in well with the release of the first episode of the second season, which will air at 10 PM on July 10th. For those viewers that have not had the chance to familiarize themselves with Burn Notice up to this point, the show revolves around Michael Westen, played by Jeffrey Donovan (Come Early Morning, Crossing Jordan), and features a number of first-person stream of consciousness expositions that set the stage for the events that are to follow.

The series starts out with Westen going AWOL in a sense from a covert ops mission down in Nigeria, after eir contact drops by the wayside and the danger inherent in staying around rises. As a result of this action, Westen’s life is turned upside down; ey is completely detached from all of eir intelligence contacts, funding is frozen, and ey is seemingly locked down through tremendous amounts of surveillance. In order to clear eir name (and to reach individuals higher up and understand what exactly is happening), Westen has to fund eirself through the taking on of different intelligence and spying jobs under the table. The only real connections that Westen has in the spy community come through an ex-girlfriend (played by Gabrielle Anwar, John Doe and Crazy Eights) and a former Navy SEAL (Bruce Campbell, of Army of Darkness fame), so clearing eir name will be a gargantuan chore.

The special features that are present beyond the episodes are legion, and one of the best of these has to be the scene-specific audio commentary that is present in each episode. The audition footage for both Jeffrey Donovan and Gabrielle Anwar are present, showing how they have evolved in the time since the auditions and have really grown into the role. Before the first episode of the second season of Burn Notice comes on USA, it is imperative that interested individuals should go out and pick up this boxed set. Aside from giving viewers some idea of where Westen has been, it makes for a hell of a good way to waste a weekend.

Rating: 8.0/10

Burn Notice – Season One / 2008 Fox / 532 Minutes / http://www.fox.com /

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