“The thing that sets you apart from Michael Westen isn’t that he’s a super hero. When he made the show, he wanted his protagonist to be relatable. Why? “One of my things in looking at spy fiction is that as much as I love James Bond as a certain point it is sort of distancing to watch someone who has all these skills that seem superhuman,” he says. Nix calls this “story math”–the theory that everything happening on-screen needs to be at least somewhat realistic and doable in order to keep viewers interested. He breaks the fourth wall constantly, explaining to viewers via voice-over how his fighting tactics or makeshift gear and traps actually work. Westen doesn’t just beat up bad guys and use cool spy gadgets. Here, Nix’s 4 lessons for making a big production efficiently, and making it work for the audience. That makes the show’s long term success something any struggling start-up, entrenched company, or even dispossessed secret agent could learn from. Over time, he’s turned each perceived weakness into an advantage. “ Burn Notice was the first television script I wrote so I kind of did it all wrong,” he says. Nix admits that he succeeded largely because he didn’t know any better.
#BURN NOTICE CAR TV#
(Once top-rated, it’s still a third-place finisher behind Walking Dead and Suits.) Episodes even tend to gain viewers as they progress, meaning viewers aren’t tuning out, they are tuning in and staying mid-plotline, something sort of unheard of in TV Land. Factor in challenges like a super small cast, filming entirely on-location, and no budget for big explosions, and doing an hour long complicated spy show seemed like a stretch to say the least. According to Nix, most shows get just north of $2 million and seven days to shoot each episode.
![burn notice car burn notice car](http://www.imcdb.org/i528607.jpg)
![burn notice car burn notice car](http://pics.imcdb.org/0ib/BurnNoticeS04E18LastStandHDTVXviD_FQM-00062028229.jpg)
Making smart drama on a cable budget is a challenge.