Are You a Burn Notice Fan With a Question? Ask a Spy for the Answer!

For three seasons now, the USA original series Burn Notice has been wooing viewers with large doses of MacGyver-esque adventure and Bruce Campbell, but one of its unsung charms is the ingenious use of voice-over. For while some shows (cough, cough Grey’s Anatomy) use the disembodied voice of the main character in an attempt to give the events on screen deeper resonance — after all, how do you know what to feel about something unless the protagonist tells you? — Burn instead showcases the show’s concept by letting former spy Michael Weston (Jeffrey Donovan) spew some of his hard-won knowledge, which ranges from tips on a successful stakeout to easy solutions to home-made explosions.

And online, USA has taken this one step further with its Ask a Spy webisodes, where Donovan, in character as Michael, addresses viewer questions from an espionage point of view. Using fun, crisp animation to illustrate the points being made, Ask a Spy is a clever way of pushing the show’s edgy and witty adventure out there. And by focusing on advice as opposed to narrative, the webisodes are evergreen. No matter what might happen on the parent show, as long as Donovan continues to star, they’re relevant.

Things I’ve learned from watching these shorts include: how to manipulate my boss, how to find my way home in the dark, and how to win a bar fight. It should come as no surprise that the quality of the episode depends on the quality of the question, but even silly queries like, “How do I know if I’m dating a spy?” have their moments of insight — “mysterious rarely ends up being something good” being that ep’s conclusion.

However, USA does get one major demerit for prefacing every short with a pre-roll ad (which today, to add insult to injury, was the ultra-creepy Palm Pre spot). We need a regulatory agency for web advertising, and one of the first things it needs to do is establish an appropriate ratio for how long an ad can be in relation to the content to which it’s connected. The Palm Pre ad is 30 seconds long, while the actual websiodes are typically one minute each. That’s a 1:2 ratio of advertising to actual content, which is like going to the movies and watching 45 minutes of trailers before the film starts — and it’s the same trailer, over and over again. Heck, screw the regulatory agency. I have an addendum for the Geneva Convention.

That aside, this is the very definition of additive content, but in the best possible way. While Ask a Spy isn’t essential viewing, it’s a bright spot of fun, a quick taste of the show for fans needing a fix after the show’s summer finale (which airs Thursday night). Just remember, though, that you’re not a spy. Leave some of this stuff to the experts.

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