It’s a mark of my monumental self-absorption that I make so bold as to review the wonderful USA Network series, “Burn Notice” (thanks to S.T. Karnick of The American Culture for bringing it to my attention), since I’m too cheap to pay for cable, and all of you probably knew about it long before I did. But I’m watching the DVDs now on my Netflix account, and I’m so enthusiastic I’ve got to say something. Quite a lot, actually.

The premise of “Burn Notice” is that the hero, Michael Westen (played by Jeffrey Donovan), is a spy who has come under suspicion in the agency, and so has been “burned”—that is, dumped in a city, with no money, credit, or legal identity, so to speak marooned.

Fortunately, he’s burned in Miami, his old home town, where he has considerable human resources

First of all there’s Sam, an old buddy and former FBI agent, played wonderfully (how else?) by the legendary guy’s guy, Bruce Campbell. Sam’s a bit of a slob, and not above living off a girlfriend’s money. He’s an amiable blowhard who, at the beginning, is actually reporting on Michael’s activities to the feds. But he’s perfectly open about it, and (like most everything else), he doesn’t see it as a big deal. What is a big deal to him is his friendship with Michael, and when the chips are down he’s got his friend’s back.

Then there’s Fiona, Michael’s former girlfriend, a one-time IRA bomber and present gun smuggler. She’s played by Gabrielle Anwar, and I can’t believe an actress this gorgeous and interesting has been working and I wasn’t aware of her at all. I suspect that Ms. Anwar may have had a nose job, and I’m reasonably certain she’s injected her lips with collagen, but in spite of these handicaps she manages to be one of the most expressive actresses I’ve ever seen. Her character runs the gamut from Fi’s cold-blooded, semi-sociopathic professional demeanor (her preferred solution for any problem is a bullet or a bomb), to her private scenes with Michael, where she becomes a love-struck teenager, provocative, sad, and hurt all at once. Michael cares for her, but considers her too volatile to be a wife.

Finally, there’s Michael’s mother, played by Sharon Gless. She’s an emotional mess, a heavy smoker, with problems of guilt over enabling Michael’s abusive father when he was growing up. But she loves her son dearly and tries—as she always did—to do as well for him as she knows how. (Casting Sharon Gless in this role was a brilliant move, since Baby Boomers will remember her as an ingénue back in the ‘70s, playing Peggy the office girl in the Eddie Albert/Robert Wagner series “Switch.” “Switch” was an early iteration of the confidence game-based series, a tradition that “Burn Notice” carries on. So in a sense, “Switch” was the mother (or grandmother) of “Burn Notice.”

The episodes follow a two-strand plot form. One strand involves Michael’s attempts to identify the people who burned him, so that he can clear his name and get his life back. The second strand consists of the jobs he does to help people who come to him with problems. Some are afraid for their lives, or those of loved ones. Some have been cheated in some way. Michael uses his spycraft skills to fix their problems (his voiceover explanations of how he does what he does are one of the pleasures of the series. This is no “A Team,” where nobody ever gets hurt, but Michael’s first choice is always non-violence).

And this moral attitude is really the heart of the show. Michael, as played by Donovan, is cool and competent (though he can be charmingly geeky at times), and deadly if he needs to be. But he helps people because he feels strongly about injustice and the protection of the innocent. He doesn’t preach about this (although he actually says in one episode that he became a spy to do good), but it’s implicit in everything he does.

So what we’ve got is a pretty strong moral core (by contemporary television standards) combined with lots of fun and eye candy.

This is fine television. As an action show with engaging characters and a dynamite ensemble cast, I don’t think we’ve seen anything this good since “The Rockford Files.”

And that, from me, is high praise indeed.