Burn Notice is a television series that airs on USA Network cable television. The one hour 'dramedy' series is in its third season and centers around covert operations agent Michael Westen, played by Jeffrey Donovan.

Covert operations agent Michael Westen, played by Jeffrey Donovan, is informed that he's black-listed while in the middle of an undercover operation. Someone higher-up within one of the government's intelligence departments puts out a 'Burn Notice' on Westen, requiring him to stay in Miami. Westen tries to figure out who put him on ice and why, and is further hampered in his attempts to secure this information by having his assets liquidated. While doing so, he takes on various private investigation and freelance spying cases to earn a living. There are three major characters in his life: Fiona, played by Gabrielle Anwar, an ex-girlfriend of Michael's who is also an ex-IRA operative; Sam, played by Bruce Campbell, a retired Navy SEAL who is secretively informing on Michael to the FBI, and his mother Madeline, played by Sharon Gless, a chain-smoking hypochondriac who constantly is nagging at Michael to make up for his many years away.

One of the unique angles the series takes is that Michael is simply a cold-blooded, shoot-em-up kind of spy. Instead, he often has to use his years of training and improvisational skills at giving him an advantage over those he is pursuing and/or protecting. Often he makes skillful use of electronic devices such as cell phones, clock radios, and pagers to provide him with low cost surveillance techniques to arm him in his case work. What also makes the show work is Michael's situational narration, helping enhance the viewer's sensory experience of the given situation.