USA Network’s Burn Notice returns tonight.

 Gabrielle Anwar and Jeffrey Donovan in 'Burn Notice'

USA Network’s Burn Notice, one of the best shows on television, returns tonight at 10 EDT. The espionage comedy-drama features Jeffrey Donovan as a fired CIA agent—the "burn notice" of the title refers to his termination, which continually threatens to take on the unpleasant, deadly, espionage connotation of the latter term.

Joining Donovan’s character, Michael Westen, in helping him to get by without an identity (which was taken away by the spy agency upon his termination), avoid being killed by his former employers, and make a meager living helping people menaced by various villains, are ex-girlfriend and superspy Fiona (Gabrielle Anwar) and buddy Sam Axe (Bruce Campbell), a former superagent, "all-around Cold Warrior" (as the USA Network PR description charmingly puts it), and current FBI informant.

As I noted in my review of the show, the series harks back wonderfully to a long tradition of adventurous do-gooders operating outside the law, such as Erle Stanley Gardner’s Lester Leith and the ’80s TV show The Equalizer, while revitalizing the espionage genre with a much-needed dose of panache and high spirits.

USA Network has announced that in addition to this summer’s eight-week run, Burn Notice will return in January with another set of new episodes, as the network’s shows Monk and Psych have been doing in recent years.

Reports have surfaced claiming that the show’s producers are going to feel the need to increase the tension in the show’s situations and reduce the lightheartedness that has made the program such a breath of fresh air, in order to compete with network TV during the January-February run.

I have my doubts about that. The show has plenty of tension already, and the producers, writers, directors, and performers have shown great skill in balancing the various aspects thus far. They should only get better at it.

If anyone should be worried and looking to change their ways, it’s the broadcast networks, which have been putting out gloomy, dank crime dramas for a full decade now. That style has surely run its course, and audiences may well start looking for something new. Burn Notice should appeal to them.