TVSquad

Set your DVRs, friends, because USA and USA HD will begin re-airing the first season of what I consider one of last years most overlooked, good new shows, Burn Notice. In fact, the pilot episode starts airing tonight at 11:00 PM ET, but if you miss that you can catch it at 2:30 AM. Or Sunday at 10 AM. Or later, at midnight. Oh, and then there's the DVD set coming out in June. In other words, no excuses!

I just finished catching up with this show a couple of weeks ago with Deb, and I'm glad I did. Joel recently had a quick interview with Jeffrey Donovan of Burn Notice, who mentioned how, even if you have no idea what the show is about, every episode starts with a very brief "what this show is about" montage that should set anyone straight. Still, if you haven't checked the series out yet, give at least the first couple of episodes a shot.

[Thanks Gordon!]

Last night, USA Network invited some of their favorite advertisers -- and a few reporters -- to their upfront presentation, held at The Modern, a sleek restaurant and lounge located at New York's Museum of Modern Art. It was an opportunity for USA and NBC Universal executives to crow about the network's continued success as well as let advertisers know what's coming up in 2008 and how they can combine their advertising message with the unique "characters" that USA offers.

All that's well and good -- be ready for more product placement and ad pods that other networks have recently adopted -- but the best part about an upfront presentation are the stars that the network drags out to schmooze and booze with those advertisers. And USA brought the big guns, including Tony Shalhoub from Monk, Debra Messing from The Starter Wife, Jeffrey Donovan and Bruce Campbell from Burn Notice, Dulé Hill, James Roday, and Corbin Bernsen from Psych, Kathryn Erbe and Chris Noth from Law & Order: Criminal Intent, the WWE's Triple H and Shawn Michaels, and Mary McCormack from the network's new show In Plain Sight. I got to speak to a few of them; audio of those interviews is after the jump.

In addition to the recent renewals and new episode orders for TNT's Saving Grace and The Closer, the USA Network has ordered up thirteen new episodes of Burn Notice.

Burn Notice is great summer fare: a series that doesn't exactly break new ground but is still fun to watch. USA's motivation in picking new shows has been to focus on strong characters, and that's exactly what keeps Burn Notice from being just another crime/detective/mystery series (even though it is just another crime/detective/mystery series). It's also what keeps me tuning into Monk after all these years, even though every episode is pretty much the same. The lead players, Jeffrey Donovan, Sharon Gless, Bruce Campbell and Gabrielle Anwar, work well within the sometimes cookie-cutter self-contained plots, elevating the series to something worth checking out each week. It's not the plots so much, it's the people.

Four million people tuned into the series premiere of USA Network's Burn Notice two weeks ago, and they held on to most of those viewers last week.

The Thursday night show has become a hit for USA. Most shows get big numbers for their premieres, because of lots of advertising and curiosity (*cough* Studio 60 *cough*), but don't hold on to them. It looks like fans like viewers like Burn Notice enough to give it another shot.

(S01E01) The first thing that struck me about Burn Notice was how the show appealed to my senses. While watching the show, I could almost feel the heat of the sun, smell the salt water and taste the Pina Coladas.

I really appreciated the lack of explanation in the pilot. Most of us have already gotten the premise from the ads for the show, so once the action kicked in, right at the beginning, I was hooked. Generally, I don't like voice-overs but it was a great way to give details that make the show very interesting. I'm sure I'm not the only one who was getting MacGyver flashbacks when Michael was explaining how to make a listening device out of two cell phones.

When the new USA series Burn Notice debuts this Thursday at 10:00 p.m., it will air without commercials. The first episode will be presented in its entirety by DIRECTV, so while you won't be seeing any ads, expected to hear a few allusions to the digital satellite TV service during the first couple episodes.

Burn Notice stars Jeffrey Donovan as a CIA spook who is given his "burn notice," (meaning: he no longer works for the CIA) and uses his skills to help out people in need. The series also stars Bruce Campbell, Gabrielle Anwar and Sharon Gless.

After the premiere of Burn Notice, Donovan's character Michael Westen will appear to thank everyone for watching. In this segment, Westen will be seen de-activating a tracking bug he found in his apartment, and then tossing it into a frying pan.

USA Network continues its foray into original programming, this time around with Burn Notice. The new drama stars Jeffrey Donovan (Touching Evil) as a CIA operative who was recently given his pink slip, or Burn Notice in spy lingo. Once he is let go he uses his Special Ops skills to help others who, for some reason or another, cannot go to the police.

Actors recently added to the cast are Gabrielle Anwar (The Librarian: Return to King Solomon's Mines), Bruce Campbell (The Adventures of Brisco County Jr., Evil Dead), and Sharon Gless (Queer as Folk, Cagney & Lacey). Production on the show will begin next week. No word at this time when it will premiere on USA.

The USA network has ordered two cast contingent pilots. First, To Love And Die In L.A. stars Shiri Appleby (Roswell, Six Degrees) as a young woman with abandonment issues. She convinces herself that the solution to her problems is tracking down the father she never knew. Things take a drastic turn when she finds him, only to discover that he is a hit-man. It does give her some clues about her relationship issues, and may open up the door to a new career.

Burn Notice takes us inside the world of a fired spy. Jeffrey Donovan (Touching Evil, Monk) stars as Michael Weston. While on a mission, Michael gets the news that he has been fired, a "burn notice", and is now untouchable. Having no idea who or what caused this, he sets out to find the truth. With no job, and none of his normal contacts at his disposal, he takes work helping those that the system can't, or won't, to fund his personal investigation. It's very one man A-Team sounding.