“Burn Notice” Set to Out-Miami “Vice”

USA's game of Spy vs. Spies gets the green light for two more seasons in Coconut Grove.

It may not have the cultural or developmental impact of the television show it aims to outlive, but an economically-challenged Miami will happily take that Burn Notice money and take it good, for at least another two years.

USA Network has just ordered seasons five and six of its Coconut Grove-based game of spy vs. spies, which follows the plight of mysteriously blacklisted spook Michael Westen as he and his fellow spy friends solve the dangerous problems of Miamians with nowhere else to turn.

If all goes well, Burn Notice's sixth season will surpass the local production record of five set by seminal '80s series Miami Vice. [Confidential to Detectives Crockett and Tubbs: 13-year-old us offers comforting and Kleenex.]

It will also continue to serve as a giant billboard for Miami tourism, broadcasting glamorous establishing shots of the city from atop the cable ratings to 206 countries worldwide. According to Forbes and our pocketbook, we could use a little of that -- and the state agrees, supporting Burn Notice's stay in Miami to the tune of $4 million in incentives. 

Stars Jeffrey Donovan, Gabrielle Anwar, and Bruce Campbell started filming their fourth season last month around Miami and in the Coconut Grove Expo Center, which was saved from the wrecking ball last year in order to continue as the show's production studio. Miami very nearly lost Burn Notice to plans for a waterfront development, but after pleas from the cast commissioners agreed that collecting $20,000 a month in rent for the Expo Center  -- and $28.4 million in revenue  -- was a better idea than undertaking a $165 million development in a terrible economy.

Losing Burn Notice would leave South Florida without a single major production filming locally. The Indian film expected to turn Miami into Bollywood Beach, Ra.One, left after just a few weeks due to high production costs, and frighteningly long-running comedy CSI: Miami is filmed in California. Anything with a Kardashian in it doesn't count.

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