“Burn Notice: Cast & Creators Live at the Paley Center”

In “Burn Notice,” it’s never very quiet on the Westen front, as onetime covert agent Michael Westen (Jeffrey Donovan) — mysteriously blacklisted and exiled to his hometown of Miami — strives to solve the puzzle of who burned him and why. This Paley Center for Media live event honors “Burn Notice,” the drama about a covert operative trying to discover why he’s been “burned” by his top-secret intelligence agency, thus branding him unemployable and under constant surveillance. Diane Gordon (blogger, The Surf Report) moderates the following panelists: series creator/executive producer/writer Matt Nix and cast member Jeffrey Donovan (Michael Westen). The panelists touch on such topics as: whether Michael will ever get “un-burned”; how an ad-lib from Donovan spawned an entire episode; and what the increased screen presence of Sharon Gless (Madeline Westen) has brought to the show. Questions from the audience then lead to a discussion of the following topics among others: how the series combines divergent moods to make viewers expect the unexpected; the challenge of portraying Michael as both “good guy” and “bad guy”; and the plausibility of Michael’s stunts.