The single biggest reason “Burn Notice” has been a success on USA is Bruce Campbell’s awesomeness, so it shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that Campbell will star in a prequel for the cable channel, according to buzz from the USA series panel at Comic-Con.

The prequel will be an action-adventure story set before the start of “Burn Notice” that follows Sam [Campbell] on a mission in Latin America. USA and Fox TV Studios will partner on the production, with filming likely to take place in Latin America between “Burn Notice” Seasons 4 and 5. [THR]

I guess this isn’t huge news, and in all likelihood I probably won’t watch a USA original movie. But I like any excuse to remember Army of Darkness, which hands-down has more bad-ass quotable lines than any other movie ever made. If you disagree, you’re wrong and I will fight you. Hail to the king, baby.

"Sorry Bunny, not even I can make Hamsterdam politically tolerable."

I was pleasantly surprised to see Robert Wisdom make an appearance on “Burn Notice” last night.   (Don’t worry, no spoilers ahead.  But if you’re really worried about “Burn Notice” spoilers, you may want to consider reevaluating your recent life choices.)  He played one of my favorite characters on “The Wire,”and I really hadn’t seen him in much else since.

It struck me how a lot of the dramas on USA, TNT, and FX have cast actors who were already identifiable with another role. My beloved Kelly Kapowski is on “White Collar,” Lt. Harris from Police Academy is on “The Closer,” Shane from “The Shield” plays Boyd Cowder on “Justified,” and of course Ash Williams from The Evil Dead plays Michael Weston’s accomplice in “Burn Notice.”  Then last night during USA’s block of original programming, they were running ads for a new show that starred the chick from Coyote Ugly, and featured Sandy Cohen from “The O.C.” and Wilson’s dead ex-girlfriend from “House.”

I think that’s cool.  It’s gotta suck being identifiable enough with a past role that it affects your future employability, especially when that past role wasn’t something you could retire on.  I understand why producers may be hesitant to cast them, though.  Some people just won’t accept them as anything but the role they are most associated with.  These idiots will do things like write blog posts where they refer to the actors only by the names of their past characters.  Or post a video of Kelly Kapowski’s cheerleading clips from “Saved by the Bell” in the same post where they talk about how important it is that people stop associating actors only with the role that made them famous (a video that originally had the embedding turned off, so they downloaded it from YouTube, laid music over it, and re-uploaded in their own YouTube account).  These people are sad, small minded idiots.
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Burn Notice (USA) — Season premiere. Apparently, much like “Justified” has done, the fourth season of this underrated show does an excellent job of weaving season-long story lines into the procedural format. Worth watching for Miami and Bruce Campbell.

Real Housewives of New York City (Bravo) — Season finale. Those two that are always fighting — you know, Chipmunk Face and the other one — try to resolve their differences. Although they’re both two wealthy privileged women living in Manhattan, so I’m not really sure what differences there could be.

Mall Cops: Mall of America (TLC) — Throngs of people gather when Sarah Palin shows up, stretching the limits of the mall cops’ abilities. But then, you could say the same thing about shoplifters.

The First 48 (A&E) — Ah, “First 48.” The ONLY television show that reveals exactly how easy it is to get away with murder.

NBA Finals (ABC) — Game 1, Lakers at Celtics. “Honey, can you turn the volume down a little? I can’t hear you when Craig Sager is on-screen.”

Today’s Forgotten Classic is “Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills.” That is the real name of a show that actually existed on USA in 1994, and it sucks more thoroughly than you can possibly believe. The cultural landscape of the early to mid-’90s was particularly barren (see also: Color Me Badd, “Fish Police,” overdeveloped nostalgia for “Saved by the Bell”), but this knock-off of “Mighty Morphin Power Rangers” made the Power Rangers look like Kung Fu Shakespeare. From Wikipedia:

The four central characters of the show were teens selected by a blob-like brain alien named Nimbar to fight off the monsters sent by evil Emperor Gorganus… In the first episode Nimbar recruits the four high school students and with a touch by his “finger” gives them each a tattoo, based on a constellation in the celestial sphere. When their tattoos flash, this means Nimbar needs them and a power portal appears that they can pass through to enter his chamber…

The teens could then stand atop platforms called “Transo Discs” and transform into “Galactic Sentinels” with super powers. When they put their hands together in an interlocking square they form the ultimate sentinel called Nitron. However Nitron’s power is “finite,” and they are only to form him as a last resort (for example, in the first episode of the series, when Ninjabot made the teens’ weapons disappear, they had no choice but to form Nitron).

You get the idea. Everything about it is casually ripped off from Power Rangers (with a dash of trying to ride “Beverly Hills 90210′s success), which in turn casually ripped off Voltron. And, much like the third copy of Michael Keaton in Multiplicity, it’s pretty retarded. There’s a seven-minute video clip of it below. I made it through 52 seconds. I challenge you to do better.

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We Internet denizens have a lot of fun with Horatio Caine, the “CSI: Miami” investigator played by David Caruso. Anyone who’s ever seen Endless Caruso One-Liners has enjoyed the comedic alchemy that comes from Caruso’s hammy seriousness and Roger Daltrey’s scream.

And it seems that Hollywood is catching on to what’s cool on the Internet. In last night’s episode of “Burn Notice” — which, like Caruso’s “CSI,” takes place in Miami — Sam Axe (played by the legendary Bruce Campbell) awesomely pulled Horatio Caine’s “one-liner + sunglasses” move. And not to pooh-pooh Caruso’s style, but I don’t think there’s anyone in Hollywood who can handle a one-liner as well as Campbell. This might be the coolest thing he’s done since he since he had a chainsaw attached to his severed arm.

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