Burn Notice Pilot
Jul. 3rd, 2007 03:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catalyst2Just got to see this and it was really good - except for one thing.
Gabrielle Anwar is just awful - she can't decide whether to use her faux-Irish accent or her faux-American accent and so equivocates between the two, sometimes in the same sentence. That and the collagen!
Now that's out of the way, everything else was just wonderful. Jeffery Donovan is as sharp and witty as ever with a wonderfully expressive face (I laughed at the way his smile is erased instantly after Pyne makes the "I love houses" joke). Bruce Campbell puts in a wonderful turn as Sam - and it has a slight edge of wackiness that is always bubbling underneath but never gets into the open in this episode. I hope it never does - that continual tension certainly adds to the feel. Sharon Gless also puts in a great turn as Madeline Westen with just the right mix of demand, manipulation and whining to feel right - any other balance and she would have come across as too harsh (too demanding), scheming bitch (too much manipulation) or pathetic (too much whining).
Visually, I was reminded a lot of that other Miami-based series Dexter in that there's colour and vibrancy in every cityscape shot. I liked the freeze frames during the VO's but I hoped that isn't used too much. Similarly, I hope that character captions aren't used too much - let's at least get rid of them for all the regulars right now.
And now to the voice-over. See, here's the funny thing - I dislike VO's most of the time. Too often it is simply a tool to cover up sloppy writing and ends up with either big chunks of exposition, clumsy "tell, don't show" droning, preachy (and somewhat condescending) moralising or simply a running commentary on what we can already see happening. If any of those were there, I would be out of there so fast. Instead, this VO is an insightful addition to the series, funny, perceptive and not a little acerbic. In short, this VO works damn well because it knows exactly those risks. Again, like Dexter (and this is the last Burn Notice/Dexter comparison I will use), the VO adds to, not detracts from, the narrative flow.
This was full of so many funny lines that I won't even begin to try to quote them all but I did laugh a lot throughout.
That said, there is a dark side to Michael Westen which we only saw glimpses of - he executed the two thugs in the bathroom in Nigeria (I think), he deals with Sugar in a very direct way that involves major damage and he gets Vincent shot when that was not the only way to deal with the issue.
Overall, I liked every part of this (bar the afore-mentioned actor) and I just hope that the series gets the numbers it needs to run for a while. On the basis of the episode, it damn well deserves to!
[Just noticed next week's episode is directed by David Solomon, director / co-producer / producer / co-executive producer on BtVS for so many episodes.]
Gabrielle Anwar is just awful - she can't decide whether to use her faux-Irish accent or her faux-American accent and so equivocates between the two, sometimes in the same sentence. That and the collagen!
Now that's out of the way, everything else was just wonderful. Jeffery Donovan is as sharp and witty as ever with a wonderfully expressive face (I laughed at the way his smile is erased instantly after Pyne makes the "I love houses" joke). Bruce Campbell puts in a wonderful turn as Sam - and it has a slight edge of wackiness that is always bubbling underneath but never gets into the open in this episode. I hope it never does - that continual tension certainly adds to the feel. Sharon Gless also puts in a great turn as Madeline Westen with just the right mix of demand, manipulation and whining to feel right - any other balance and she would have come across as too harsh (too demanding), scheming bitch (too much manipulation) or pathetic (too much whining).
Visually, I was reminded a lot of that other Miami-based series Dexter in that there's colour and vibrancy in every cityscape shot. I liked the freeze frames during the VO's but I hoped that isn't used too much. Similarly, I hope that character captions aren't used too much - let's at least get rid of them for all the regulars right now.
And now to the voice-over. See, here's the funny thing - I dislike VO's most of the time. Too often it is simply a tool to cover up sloppy writing and ends up with either big chunks of exposition, clumsy "tell, don't show" droning, preachy (and somewhat condescending) moralising or simply a running commentary on what we can already see happening. If any of those were there, I would be out of there so fast. Instead, this VO is an insightful addition to the series, funny, perceptive and not a little acerbic. In short, this VO works damn well because it knows exactly those risks. Again, like Dexter (and this is the last Burn Notice/Dexter comparison I will use), the VO adds to, not detracts from, the narrative flow.
This was full of so many funny lines that I won't even begin to try to quote them all but I did laugh a lot throughout.
That said, there is a dark side to Michael Westen which we only saw glimpses of - he executed the two thugs in the bathroom in Nigeria (I think), he deals with Sugar in a very direct way that involves major damage and he gets Vincent shot when that was not the only way to deal with the issue.
Overall, I liked every part of this (bar the afore-mentioned actor) and I just hope that the series gets the numbers it needs to run for a while. On the basis of the episode, it damn well deserves to!
[Just noticed next week's episode is directed by David Solomon, director / co-producer / producer / co-executive producer on BtVS for so many episodes.]
