Trigger-happy ‘Burn Notice’ hits mark with blasts of bullets

When it comes to the use of guns, I'm somewhere between Don Knotts and Duke Nukem.

I'm never going to go hunting, but I support my neighbor's right to do so. I'm just not wild about his right to own the kind of firepower that could take down the International Space Station from his front porch.

But on TV, I love guns. Can't get enough. The more the merrier, the bigger the better. Have John Woo direct a season of "24," and I'd be set for life.

Just don't tell me televised violence breeds real violence. I've spent a greater portion of my life watching TV than 99 percent of the world without ever wanting to shoot anyone or anything.

I also never really bought into Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" thesis that there was something fundamentally different between Americans, made out to be a bunch of trigger-happy violence junkies, and our docile, concerned-with-the-sanctity-of-life neighbors to the north.

But then came this week's return of the sexy spy series "Burn Notice" (10 p.m. Thursdays), which airs on the good ole USA Network, and the debut of the police tactical team drama "Flashpoint" (10 p.m. Friday, KLAS-TV, Channel 8), which is filmed and set in Toronto.

Guess which one's more entertaining.

When last we saw blacklisted spy-turned-professional do-gooder Michael Westen (Jeffrey Donovan), he was driving a borrowed Cadillac up and into the back of a tractor-trailer on an isolated bridge in the hopes that it would take him to whomever issued the burn notice that ended his career as a spook.

Thursday's second-season premiere picks up 48 hours later with Michael still in the back of the truck. "When you've cleaned your gun 30 times and reviewed the past tense of every verb in five languages," he says, in one of his running voice-overs, "you start itching to make a move."

Good thing he's ready, because without giving anything away, what's waiting for him when the truck's door finally opens isn't pretty. But what's waiting for him once he's completed the dangerous job that's forced on him definitely is.

It turns out, the mysterious voice on the phone -- the one that makes Michael jump through hoops and threatens the life of his clingy mother (Sharon Gless) -- belongs to "Battlestar Galactica's" Tricia Helfer.

As Carla, the one person Michael thinks can help him clear his name, Helfer adds to the sexy vibe of the show that already includes footage of lush, vibrant Miami that should only get better now that USA's gone HD and lingering shots of Fiona (Gabrielle Anwar), Michael's ex-girlfriend and a former IRA operative, who's been sculpted and Pilated to within an inch of her life. (Seriously, you could grate cheese on those abs.)

But the real strength of "Burn Notice" is that it's every bit as fun as it is sexy. The series works in the same way "Ocean's Eleven" did, in that you're seeing professionals at the top of their games, pulling off the impossible while still finding time to crack wise.

Throw in Bruce Campbell, who brings his particular brand of wise-assery to the role of Sam, Michael's ex-Navy SEAL buddy, and "Burn Notice" is so cool, it lowers the temperature in my living room by a good 10 degrees.

"Flashpoint," meanwhile, starts out promising enough, with heavily armored cops responding to a hostage situation. There are plenty of scenes of tactical teams getting locked and loaded and images of sniper rifles roughly the size of the snipers.

Then the action goes absolutely nowhere. Aside from a brief trip to a shooting range, exactly two bullets are fired: the one that started the standoff and the one that ended it.

The last 20 minutes or so are all about the aftermath from the perspective of the sniper (Hugh Dillon): his physical reaction to taking a life, the reassurances from his co-workers, the investigation into the shooting and his talking to a shrink.

CBS bought a stake in "Flashpoint," which was created by Canada's CTV, during the uncertainty of the writers strike. If you're not paying attention, though, it's tough to tell it's Canadian. The police occasionally are referred to as constables, a TV in the background is tuned to something called CHXT, "process" is pronounced "proh-cess" and the police who aren't in tactical gear look like extras in a "Kids in the Hall" sketch.

But the biggest clue to its Canadian-ness may just be that whole sanctity of life thing. Yes, demonstrating the seriousness of killing a man, justifiably or not, is the responsible thing to do. So is composting. But neither makes for very exciting TV.

Maybe we really are a nation of trigger-happy violence junkies. But on TV at least, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Christopher Lawrence's Life on the Couch column appears on Mondays. E-mail him at clawrence@reviewjournal.com.