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By Nikki Finke | Category: Comedy | Monday February 8, 2010 @ 4:22pm PST
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This skit was weird and not in a funny way. Of course, the entire show wasn’t funny either. They seemed inspired last week. This week…blah. The Fox News open wasn’t funny either. I mean, if you can’t make fun of Fox News…
Burn Notice features the worst attempts at an Irish accent ever heard since those awful Oirish episodes Heroes attempted in S2. In fact the worst attempts ever!
My Irish family fall over laughing everytime we hear Fiona’s “Shall We Shoot Them” comment at the start of each episode.
The only episode in which Fiona spoke with an accent was in the pilot, and maybe for a couple scenes in one other episode when he brother showed up.
Are you sure you watch the show?
Every episode we get the “shall we shoot them” line, just plain awful
and as for the episode with her brother and we had to endure her attempts again :-S
The actress who plays Fiona — Gabrielle Anwar — is British. That’s her actual British voice in the Irish episode doing an Irish accent. In the pilot she actually “leaked” a little British because she found it hard to stay in character and do an American voice. She is doing an American accent the rest of the time which she learned with the help of a dialect coach between the pilot and the series order. I think someone born and raised in England probably can do a decent Irish accent like you or I could do Southern U.S.
Yeah, someone born and raised in the UK, one whose professional career in theatre, film and television began there, would probably have no idea how to pull off a successful Irish dialect.
Say, do you imagine she was trying to pull of a Dublin dialect, or perhaps Derry? Killarney, or the Arans?
Personally, I was glad to hear something other than the usual generic “Lucky Charms” version. And while I don’t claim to recall where she and her brother were supposed to have grown up, I do remember thinking she had a Belfast dialect nailed. Lemme guess – the family’s grandparents are from Dublin? Or maybe Cork. You type like a southie.
Wow. It’s SNL making fun of a TV show that’s much better than SNL. That’s… something.
Thank you!
It’s a great guilty pleasure show, especially for those of us who love seeing Bruce Campbell be, well, Bruce Campbell.
That’s why I watch it.
The commerical (and the reaction afterward) was the best part. I’m a big fan, but even I have to admit the commerical made no sense whatsoever.
I actually love Burn Notice and this is brilliant.
They could have extended it to all the USA Network properties.
‘Is it a comedy/drama where quirky people with unbelievable skills solve crimes and help people in a romantic locale? Is it the A-Team with skinnier stars? Does it feel like an early evening Network show from the mid-80’s?’
i love burn notice and know a bunch of people who watch it.
what i want to know is…who watches NCIS and how is it the #1 drama on tv? i literally don’t know a soul that’s ever seen it.
Same here.
But then again I don’t live in a nursing home.
I just spit out my coffee. You owe me a new monitor.
i agree, the people who watch most of the cbs crime procedural (and spin-off) don’t ever turn off their tv or change channel. seriously, if they are awake and actually follow what they’re watching, they will know that they are watching the exact same plot over and over and over again. and now they are doing a criminal minds spin-off…where are the creative writers?
Totally agree. As soon as I got the joke, I thought: man, I wish they had done NCIS instead. Massive ratings, but I haven’t met a soul who’s ever watched it.
Hey! I’m not a frequent viewer but I catch it when I’m flipping through the tv and see it.
Like BATTLESTAR and MONK, if NBC aired BURN NOTICE on their network it would sink like a stone. Compared to syndicated fare, it looks pretty good, but the show is lightweight and no one really talks about it or gives it awards. It’s this generation’s SILK STALKINGS, but at least that had Mitzi Kapture.
Burn notice is undoubtedly one of the finest shows on television today. It has great writing, continuity (which is much harder to write then just a different murder every week), and an excellent cast which just happens to include Bruce Campbell.
You are right though, it probably would not do well on on NBC, as time and time again we have been shown that the intelligent people who watch TV either watch on Pay channels (anything by HBO, Weeds, etc..), or cable channels (Mad Men anyone?)
the show rocks the EP Mikkel Bondesen is a really strange dude. Anyone believe him svengali BS. I was at a meeting with him (he wanted to sign me and my partner) with my partner and he started spouting all this new age crap we almost started cracking up right in front of him. I was waiting for stop preaching and tell us he was just joking. He wasn’t. Anyone have soap to wash off after meeting him. Slimy.
Anyone out there had this same experience with Mikkel.
Yeah. Had the exact same experience. Actually, I got mad at him because he was so hard core about his weirdness. Like he was trying to brainwash me. I wanted to sign with one of his managers but couldn’t because of him.
Damn I knew it! I knew this type of stuff went on. I just needed someone to confirm it
Wow someone actually had the balls to call that weirdo out. I had the same experience. One of his managers wanted to sign me too. He comes in and I wish I had a tape recorder with me. It was all life coach like. “we will coach you to do as we say and you will make boat loads of money and be free of communism forever”. Who says yes to this coo coo bird. I walked out called the person that connected us and he was like “oh yeh forget to tell you it may be really weird that’s why I didn’t sign over there”. Stay away from Satan Bondesen as they like to say behind his back at Fuse.
Huh, I thought this was pretty funny, actually. Way funnier than the skits they used to open the show, which is why I checked out by 11:50.
“Can you be more specific?”
“No.”
The commercial was hilarious, though I would assume SNL edited all non-specific information out of it.
I’ve never heard of Burn Notice. I thought this was pretty funny.
The Burn Notice skit was hilarious (and so was the Fox News opening and the Rahm Emmanuel skit). The skit with the simpering Roman Senator getting murdered was disgusting though and deserves to be called out and the homophobic little shits that wrote it should be reprimanded but good.
Yah- you say dissing, but they played the friggin commercial and showed the poster and talked about it for five minutes… it was a giant ad for the show. If the original ad was designed to make people curious… now they are more curious. If they weren’t both NBCU properties they would have gotten paid to do that bit (and maybe still were).
That was my first thought. Was SNL ever truly controversial or was it always made up like this? Anyone? Anyone?
Well, they do drop F-bombs every few years…
Hey, Burn Notice has Bruce Campbell in it! That’s good enough for me!
(And Bruce, please drop a few pounds! You’re still a handsome guy and good ‘mature’ leading man material who can swashbuckle with the the best of ‘em… )
I gave up on SNL during the opening monologue with the so unfunny Ashton Kutcher. Last week was a pretty good episode–what happened? The older SNL gets, the sadder it becomes………
Sudekis was great in the sketch, regardless of the content.
SNL seems to have seasons of good, bad, good, bad…
Scott Copley, please tell me you are a working writer so I can shoot myself in the face.
Ha ha ha ha. Agreed.
What is Burn Notice?
10 times better than lame ass SNL.
Oh my god that was lame.
That was just dumb. What was the point-to diss a high rated cable program that on its worst day is 100x better than SNL these days?
Wow…..
Anybody watching SNL is pathetically staying home ALONE because they thik SNL is funny..and it is not. Come on…
Aw diddums, you forgot “In their parents’ basement.” If you’re going to insult people for watching (more likely DVR’ing) a show, you should go all in with the stalest internet “insult” evar.
anyone got a link for those of us outside of the us (hulu is blocked).
I have to admit, if Bruce Campbell wasn’t on it, I wouldn’t know what “Burn Notice” was either. But he is on it, so I know it’s about some secret agent who gets “burned” and has to live his life getting advice from Bruce Campbell, who was also burned and knows a lot more than whoever the main guy is.
And one more time: BRUCE CAMPBELL!!!
I’m absolutely undoubtedly certitudinally positive that nobody at NBC would ever DREAM of using an SNL skit ostensibly mocking another NBC show to actually reverse-psychologizingly promote it…..
The show is awesome!! This skit is lame
Not really a diss, just a good observation. I missed out on the first two seasons because the name and ads seemed unappealing. Then, I watch it and find out it’s a kick ass spy show like A-Team in Miami. Wish I’d seen those seasons. I watch every episode, now!
But what the heck is it? And why do people over 50 love this show so much?
Two words: Bruce Campbell
Repetition is the main ingriedient in any SNL skit. Start off with a lame idea and just repeat a phrase or a gesture over and over untill it gets a laugh
I watch Burn Notice and thought the skit was hilarious. Why? Because I have friends/family/colleagues who have asked “What is Burn Notice?” and it’s actually a difficult thing to explain now that the show is into its third season. Michael Westen is not a spy — he was fired. He’s not a PI — doesn’t have a license. We’re still not sure who really caused/created the burn notice or why they’ve been chasing him, employing him or (every so often) trying to kill him. Is Fiona a girlfriend? Ex-girlfriend? Friend with benefits? Does Sam really look like an ex-Navy SEAL (even if he fights like one)?
Regardless, the show is fun, the cast is solid and making fun of Burn Notice was NBC’s concession that their cable channel is heads above them in the creative dept.
Once a spy, always a spy.. though you might not be getting paid for it. It has been pretty well established this season that Fiona is back to girlfriend status.
As for Sam not looking like a Navy Seal, he has been out of the service for a while, but in a recent episode he (and an old Seal buddy) were ambushed in a building and came rappeling out head first running down the side of the building while shooting SMG’s at the bad guys.
It was one of the most awesome scenes I have ever seen on a show, and just one of the myriad of reasons why I love Burn Notice.
The skit simply means “BN” has arrived. You don’t get the SNL treatment unless you’re on the pop culture radar.
The cool thing about the show is it really can’t be placed in any of the standard categories.
It’s mindless, explosion & fight laden macho eye candy w/ a slice of sweet.
What’s not to like?
Well, the Cialis Three-Way commercial was funny. The Burn Notice skit? Not so much. But’s that’s always been SNL — when the skits work, they can be hilarious. When they bomb, they can really stink. A good night, they bat .500.
You lika the juice, huh?
Thank you. Nobody really seems to get how SNL works. (Or that humor is subjective.) Go on any SNL comment board and you’ll see about 8,000 variations of “Man that sketch sucked! SNL is so bad these days.”
I love Burn Notice!! I watch it all the time. I can’t say the same about SNL.
SNL can make fun of Burn Notice all they want and most of you can say SNL isn’t funny anymore, but the ratings for both shows say otherwise. Just because you feel a certain way, does not mean everybody else feels the same way.
Way too many posters on this entire board don’t understand the concept of an opinion. They just feel that everybody shares their exact same opinions. And if the don’t, then they are stupid.
My personal opinion is that SNL still has it’s moments (especially weekend update), but it’s not what it used to be. That said, its ratings continue to do well so they must be doing something right.
SNL is still on ??
The skit would have been much funnier (and less ambiguously weird), if one of the actors from Burn Notice played one of the contestants.
Duh.
This bit was spot on. Watching any USA show is like stepping into a time warp and returning to the days when Steve Cannell ruled the airwaves. What’s the demo on this show? 89 to Recently Dead?
i know what burn notice is but who the hell knows what SNL is anymore. you’re pretty lame and old if you stay at home watching snl.
I DVR SNL every Saturday, yet I usually fast forward through most of the show. Maybe SNL should try to be good instead of bagging on what’s bad…
This comment thread just proves the skit’s point. I’ve read every comment here–no Burn Notice logline, nothing even close. Zip. Zero. Big goose egg.
Anybody who watches it, is watching it for Bruce Campbell. I’m pretty sure Fiona is a dude though.
SNL hasn’t been funny for a long time and this skit proves it.
What is Burn Notice?
Something SNL does not have. Good writing and great acting. Too bad SNL is now crap and no one cares about it.
OH and Ashton Valentines Day is a awful. I would watch burn notice over that crap for 2 hours.
The whole thing comes off like the network told SNL to mention Burn Notice for some cross-promotional action, and this is what they came up with to fulfill that demand and to “stick it to the ’suits’” who had the gall to tell them what to do.
A lot of people missing the point here. The skit was simply the most shameful cross-promotion ever hatched between NBCUni properties. Wrestling continues to carry the USA Network; remove wrestling and it’s no longer even among the top-5 cable nets. So they use “SNL” (which still has a bigger audience than anything on USA…. except maybe wrestling…) to promo a potentially popular USA show, using a handful of positive critics’ reviews they had available. Not much more to it than that.