Sportsology: Burn Notice and White Collar season finales

Posted by Rick Morris

The USA Network has caught fire in recent years with a string of entertaining dramas. I count myself as somebody who has a hard time sitting through standard one-hour shows (perfect example being that I am a huge Gary Sinese mark but I have watched very little of CSI: New York because the material is a bit much for my attention span), but the fact that USA's emphasis on characters is not merely a marketing campaign -- that element makes these shows very easy to watch.

Our good pal Russ Cohen at Sportsology has covered both of these shows previously and he's got up another great column about the season finales of Burn Notice and White Collar. It's a great read and we're happy to reproduce it here.

Burn Notice and White Collar Share an Audience
By Russ Cohen

The USA Network has a bevy of popular shows on their channel, but Burn Notice and White Collar are a strong duo. White Collar creator Jeff Eastin knows he has to keep his show interesting and so far this season there have been a lot of twists and turns -- and in the end, it makes you wonder what will happen.

“Yes. We have a pretty major cliffhanger coming up. And what we’ve done in Season Two is really—we’re right into it now. The writers’ group has been going about two weeks now and most of that time we’ve been just working on the mythology moving forward into Season Two. What I did, really, was look and say what we thought we really did right in Season One and just try to duplicate that.

“Again, going into Season Two, one of the things we want to be careful of is that we don’t adjust too much. But again we kind of keep what’s working. And too, there’s a growing trust between the guys. What we’ve really moved away from is Peter is not afraid currently that Neal’s going to pack his bags and run. We’ve definitely advanced the relationship to that not being a big concern. In the first few episodes, it was always is this guy going — in the pilot even, when he says cut his anklet, Peter was pretty sure he’d run.”

But he didn’t, at least not yet, and still the viewer isn’t sure whether Neal will continue to stay on the straight and narrow, but that’s the fun of watching this show. It would seem as though the possibility could exist for a crossover.

“I completely agree. I mean, Matt Nix, who created Burn Notice, and I are pretty good friends. Yes, if we’re going to do a crossover, that seems like the one to do. It will be interesting to talk to USA about it. I know there’s been some joking about it, but I think in terms of a crossover that would be by far the most logical and the most fun. I guess the interesting thing would be would we send Michael to New York or would we send Neal to Florida?”

In case you've missed some White Collar episodes, you can watch them here: http://www.usanetwork.com/series/whitecollar/video/fullep/

John Mahoney and Garret Dillahunt guest-star in the Burn Notice season finale, "Devil You Know." Speaking of Burn Notice, Michael and Fiona have really been on the “hot seat” the past few weeks and the viewer isn’t really sure how this will turn out -- and as it turns out the actors don’t know either!

“It’s not very clear how that will turn out. Well, I think that, I'll speak for Gabrielle, I mean I know from talking with all the other castmates, we're very happy with where it's going. But sometimes Matt Nix and all the other writers keep us slightly in the character dark, not because they don't trust us with the knowledge, but they're just trying to figure it out as well along the way.

“When you're dealing with espionage and covert affairs, sometimes the secret is more exciting than the knowledge. If we were both in charge, I would love a deeper insight into Michael's past, that's for me. I don't know about Gabrielle, what would you like?,” said Jeffrey Donovan, who plays Michael on the show.

“I'm quite happy with Fiona's enigmatic state of being. I don't think I need to know more about, I'd love to know more about where you're from, absolutely, but I quite like not knowing. I don't like to know who I am,” Gabrielle Anwar said playfully.

And what do you know, some more crossover talk came up this time with Jeffrey.

“I actually would like to do a crossover somehow with White Collar, I think that the show tonally is similar to ours. I don't know how that would work, but I would like to see that. I don't think we would work with any other show. I think Psych and Royal Pains doesn't figure into our tone.”

Fiona is clearly a complicated character and Michael seems very confused as to where they are headed. As it turns out, so is Gabrielle.

“I don't know, to be perfectly honest, whether she does want to settle down. I don't think that that is interesting to her at all. I think she wants to feel secure, but again I don't know what that definition of security might be to her. It's certainly not your typical conventional idea of marriage for example, but I think she wants to feel secure because she's a woman and it seems innate in all of us.”

Check out both of these great shows, you won’t be sorry!