Burning desire to watch

Tell me a new TV show is about a spy, and I'm mildly interested. Tell me it's largely comedic in nature and I'll definitely give it a shot. Tell me it has b-movie king Bruce Campbell (star of the Evil Dead movies and lifetime holder of the Greatest Chin in the Universe crown) in a prominent supporting role and I'll set my DVD-R to record the whole season before even viewing an episode.

And Burn Notice (TV3, Sun, 9.30pm) hasn't disappointed me. It's a corker jaunty, pacy, often hilarious, and home to a performance by Jeffrey Donovan that boasts almost thermo-nuclear levels of charm.

Donovan plays Michael Westen, a spook for an unnamed US government agency. As the pilot opens, he's doing some kind of deal in Nigeria with assorted heavies, but when he calls his people to send a wire transfer he's told there's a "burn notice" on him. Which, in the parlance of Mission: Impossible, means he's been disavowed. The heavies beat the snot out of him of course, but Westen manages to escape and wakes up in a Florida hotel room with ex-girlfriend Fiona (the lovely Gabrielle Anwar sporting an Irish accent).

Naturally, he wants to find out why he's been "burned", and by whom. The government doesn't do things by half measures, either - not only is he out of a job, but his bank accounts have been frozen and, for all intents and purposes, Westen no longer exists. At this point, I was wondering how this concept could be stretched out over a potentially long-running series, but then Westen realises he's going to need money in order to find out who burned him, so he pays a visit to old buddy Sam (The Human Chin himself). Sam hooks him up with some work to build a bankroll, thus niftily setting up how the show will play week by week: Westen gets an under-the-table job with which he can show off his myriad spy skills, while simultaneously trying to solve the mystery of his disavowal.

Quite how long Burn Notice can keep up the energy and intrigue of its pilot episode is as yet unkown, but it's certainly a hell of an opening salvo, filled to the brim with snappy dialogue and likeable characters. Put it this way: had I paid to see the feature-length premiere in a movie theatre, I wouldn't have felt ripped off.

After The Practice, Boston Legal, numerous movie adaptations of John Grisham novels and the (approximately) 37 variations on Law & Order, I need another show about lawyers like I need another show about a c-list celebrity desperate for another 15 minutes. But Damages (TV1, Wed, 8.30pm) intrigued me nonetheless, featuring as it does actors of the calibre of Glenn Close and Rose Byrne. It opens with a nice hook, with Byrne running half-naked around the streets of New York, beaten and bloodied. Then it flashes back to six months earlier, where it turns out Byrne is ambitious law school graduate Ellen Parsons (a name which unfortunately conjures up images of bearded prog rockers).

Parsons is in demand, and turns down a $150,000 a year offer for an interview with the firm of Patty Hewes (Close playing the icy ball-buster character she's perfected over the years). Hewes is, of course, impressed by her moxie and hires her.

It all seems like a pretty standard legal drama thus far much talk of settlements and torts but there are elements to Damages which make it more interesting than most. You get to see Ted Danson play a slippery, cold-hearted bastard for starters, and the flashback structure lends it an extra layer of fascination. Plus it comes from US cable TV, so the characters can swear. Which is always good.

- © Fairfax NZ News