"Burn Notice" Article

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/arts/television/01bell.html?ref=television

I always like Ginia Bellafante's reviews. On Friday, she published one entitled "Lusting After Guns, and the Affections of an Ex-Boyfriend," and while I like it - it's funny and witty, usual - I think it's unclear what her message about the show actually is.

She's talking about the character of Fiona Glenanne on USA's "Burn Notice." The show is currently in it's second-season, and is about Fiona and Michael's (former operatives) journey to figure out who "burned" him.

It appears that what she's saying is that Fiona's character really works: she's funny, she's real, and the actress does a great job of capturing her. Bellafante writes that "...producers correctly foresaw the comic potential of using a woman who looks as if she has stepped out of Burke's Peerage and Gentry to play someone who appears to live in the pages of Jane's Defense Weekly" and that "Fiona is character who has no memorable precedent." In other words, she's fresh - she's not on ABC at 9pm and then again at 10pm and then again three times the next night because writers these days don't seem to know how to create real characters.

It's the last paragraph in the review that really makes me think twice. She writes " 'Burn Notice' may have set out to say something about espionage in the post-9/11 age, but it has turned into a winning post-feminism revenge fantasy. Fiona fights for us all." I'm struggling with Bellafante's tone here - she's almost sounds like she's mocking Fiona and the show. She does call it "winning," so I'm led to believe that she likes it, but I'm also wondering if she's saying that the show isn't at all about what it's intended to be about. I don't know, I may just be reading way too far into this, but, as always, she's funny, and interesting to read.