“Burn Notice” Returns Jan. 21

January is a big month for USA, with their top rated shows returning for the second half of their seasons. Burn Notice is one of those shows and your Nice Girls will be there watching as Sharon Gless reunites with her “Cagney & Lacey” co-star and best friend, Tyne Daly, in A Dark Road. Who’s with us?

When a recently widowed woman hires Michael and Fiona to get her away from a group of violent con men, Michael turns to Madeline for help — but he may ask her to go too far. Meanwhile, a mysterious contact goes to extreme lengths to get Michael’s attention.Tyne Daly & Clayne Crawford guest-star in the Burn Notice winter premiere – “A Dark Road” – airing this Thursday at a new but familiar time: 10/9C.

Take a peek:

‘Burn Notice’ At Comic Con: It IS A Sci-Fi Show

On the heels of the electrifying panel, Entertainment Weekly’s Wonder Women, next up in Ballroom 20 was the “Burn Notice” panel moderated by Michael Shanks (”Stargate SG-1″).

After the fans recovered from their elation upon discovering Michael Shanks, who played both Victor on “Burn Notice” and Daniel on “Stargate SG-1″, would be moderating the panel, things only got more outrageous with Bruce Campbell stealing the spotlight at every opportunity.

First up, there was a short video introduction by Jeffrey Donovan, who plays Michael Weston,  providing spy tips for Comic-Con attendees, such as:  if you have 2 panels you want to attend that are at the same time, how to create a delay tactic with technical difficulties.  But he concluded with a final warning that this technique should not be employed on a panel where a spy was presenting as both sabotage and sneaking out of a spy’s panel could be potentially hazardous.

Then the panelists were introduced:  Matt Nix (creator/writer), Alfredo Barrios Jr. (writer), Bruce Campbell  (”Sam”), Seth Peterson (”Nate”), Ben Shenkman (”Tom Strickler”), Jay Karnes (”Brennan”).

Starting with an easy question, Matt Nix tried to explain that there is no big mystery behind Michael and Nate’s dad and, to burst the bubble of the uber-fans, he clarified that their dad is NOT a super-spy as has been speculated.  He emphasized further by stating, “Michael’s father did not burn him” and that “Burn Notice” is NOT “Alias.”  He tried to explain that he only incorporated the family aspect of Michael’s story to help explain where Michael came from.  He believes that Michael’s dysfunctional and challenging family life is what helped him gain necessary skills to be a spy, like paranoia.  He feels it is Michael’s “dark core” that makes him interesting.

Upon hearing the first person to yell, “I love you!” Bruce Campbell told that person to come up to the stage and he whipped out his wallet and gave the guy some cash.  When more fans quickly began yelling out their declarations of love too, Bruce told everyone to “behave!” and said that was it, he was not giving out any more money.  Then  he proceeded to give out cash two more times — once more to the very same guy who proclaimed his love for him earlier after he asked the question about when Sam was going to have a chance to kick some butt, opposed to always being beat-up.  It was a good question, but it was to Bruce’s chagrin that it turned out to be the same kiss-up fan from earlier, and due to the bright stage lights he could not see the guy and ended up giving him some more money.  The third time was to a young girl and she had asked him such a good question (she had asked Matt Nix if Bruce was helping write all the funny lines in the show) that he
felt compelled to offer her some cash too.  So don’t let it be said that Bruce Campbell it not a generous guy!

Then to make sure he had the fans in a complete laughing frenzy, in response to one girl’s question about if the mojito was Sam’s drink of choice, what would be his, Bruce responded, “I would order a room and your naked body.”  That highly risqué quip nearly got him a date that night!

Trying to get the panel back on track, Matt Nix was asked what was the most challenging part in creating villains each week, and he said that it was hard making the villains as “smart and funny as Michael is” and that he was just really grateful that he had actors who were “smart and funny” who could pull off the villain roles so successfully.

With that nice segue, the other panelists were invited to comment on their characters and what they bring to the show.

Jay Karnes, who plays Brennan, initially said that he would prefer to “spend our time asking Bruce questions” otherwise it “feels like punching a rock star at a concert.”  But conceding that Bruce could not answer all the questions, he said that what he thought made Brennan such a good villain was the fact that he “does not believe anything Michael tells him and always knows that [he is] being played.”

Ben Shenkman, who plays Strickler, stated that his character’s strength came from being able to do what Michael can do:  he can talk people into doing things which are actually against their best interest.  Strickler is just a smooth talker.

As he is not a villain on the show, Seth Peterson, who plays Nate Weston, Michael’s brother, said that to date his character has only really changed with respect to facial hair, which was even given a line in an episode where Michael said, “what happened to the ferret on your face?”  He did state that would like to appear more on the show, as perhaps a spy-in-training under Sam’s tutelage.

In response to a fan’s question about if the writers put things in the show to see if the fans catch them, Matt Nix and Alfredo Barrios Jr. responded that they do.  They frequently use the casts or writer’s family names as villains or restaurants.  For example, they have had villains called Anwar, Campbell and Matheson (after Tim Matheson who directs episodes on their show), and they named Tom Stickler after one of the co-founder partners for the Endeavor talent agency.

To get everyone back on their feet again, Bruce Campbell responded to the question of “where you offered a role in Drag Me To Hell?” with “no, I was not offered a role in Drag Me To Hell, and Sam [Raimi] will pay for that in Spiderman 4, 5, and 6!”

And just when you thought it could not get more hilarious, Bruce nearly stole the panel with his break-down on how “Burn Notice” is a show that belongs at Comic-Con.  He stated it was because the show has horror, sci-fi and fantasy elements:  the horror is connected to his character’s name “Sam Axe” (like an ax used in horror movies); the sci-fi is tied to all the aliens that Miami has; and the fantasy element is his character’s ability too sleep with an endless string of rich women.  That explanation and tie-in was PRICELESS.

Clearly, this panel was about Bruce Campbell and his multitude of zealous fans.  But it provided many comedic moments and levity for everyone and gave us the sense that everyone was having a great time — both the fans and the panelist who were eating up all the high energy and warm response.  Bruce Campbell — the man, the myth and the legend lives — at Comic-Con!

Catching Up Our Nice Boys

Well we certainly have dropped the ball on this item! What a shame and a crime, and no one brought it to our attention. Does this mean you guys aren’t interested? Say it isn’t so! How could you not miss a little bit of sweetness during your week? We’re going to remedy that right now. We’ve actually had three winners for the Nice Boy of the Week award since Patrick Swayze.

First up, Tom Cavanagh of Trust Me.

Tom is a native of Canada and heads up quite an impressive list of television and film credits. More recently seen in TNT’s Trust Me, with Eric McCormack, Tom appeared in Eli Stone, Scrubs, Snow 2: Brain Freeze, The Capture of the Green River Killer, and How To Eat Fried Worms, just to name a few.

Next on our bill is Jeffrey Donovan from USA’s Burn Notice. Back in the day, when Jeffrey first caught me attention in The Pretender, playing Kyle, Jarod’s long lost brother, it was clear we would be seeing much, much more of this fine actor. I’m so happy I was right! Since The Pretender, Jeffrey’s appeared in Touching Evil, Crossing Jordan, Law & Order, and even Monk. We like him just where he is, for now.

Our most recent Nice Boy is Fringe’s Mark Valley. Mark has been around the block as well, from Days of Our Lives to Once and Again, Pasadena, ER, The 4400, Boston Legal, Law & Order:SVU,  and Swingtown. Whew! And that’s not all! Mark’s been busy and we hope he always will be.

Mark is currently playing John Scott on FOX’s hit series, Fringe.

What a list, huh? Tune in this Thursday as we choose our new Nice Boy of the Week. Why not drop us your nominations?