USA Network’s Burn Notice took the summer by storm last year combining the elements of a procedural, with the snark of Gil Grissom on CSI, and a comedic bite rolled into serious stories. The show excelled at making a name for itself with its overall mythology on why Michael Westen was burned and how he was going to save himself from being trapped in Miami forever. In the final episodes of season one we are introduced to bigger players in the game, including the unseen Carla (Tricia Helfer) who beings manipulating Michael from the very start of this episode. Her motives aren’t known beyond Michael driving into the back of a trailer and emerging with two dead bodies and a tied up security consultant to work with.

While it looked like the season finale was going to change up the show’s formula, season two eventually finds Michael back in Miami performing a job for Carla in order to meet her and find out what is going on. Carla, as we’ve known for some time, is played by Tricia Helfer, assuming yet another villainous role after her run as Six on the Peabody-winning Battlestar Galactica. Although she is in the episode for less than a minute, her presence (and beauty) alone make her stand out and give a face to the previously ambiguous element behind the show’s burn notice.

Westen finds himself needing to help a security consultant who the syndicate (a cool name we’re giving to the people manipulating Westen) has taken his family hostage. The target is a private security firm (aka mercenaries) with data the syndicate wants. When we finally get to see the data it makes no sense to any of our main characters, but its obvious there’s a lot of wheels turning here. There’s a grand aura behind this season with many of the cogs in the wheel beginning to sync up into something bigger, which should make the next few months fun avoiding the heat on Thursday nights.

The season does start a little low key, especially with the return to form no more than five minutes into the season premiere. Not that this is a bad thing, as previously stated Burn Notice‘s biggest advantage over other procedurals is that you forget it IS a procedural at heart, with each episode focusing on the relationship between Michael and Fiona, Michael and Sam, Michael and his mom, throwing in a client, a bad guy, Michael with a funny accent, and ending with the bad guy getting his due in a clever manner. While some shows have strived to change up the formula each and every season, My Name is Earl comes to mind, to mixed results, Burn Notice stays true to what made it fun in the first place.

It seems Martin Lawrence has finally realized where the money is in Hollywood: producing. Anytime are Lawrence is involved in a project, it’s hit or miss as to whether or not it’ll be a winner. In this case, Martin Lawrence’s First Amendment Stand Up has a lot of the same qualities as a Premium Blend, or Friday Night Standup, but it’s refreshing to see him take such risks on putting so many relatively green comics on such a show.

In the premiere episode of the show’s second season, Doug Williams, host of the show, has the obligatory job of warming the crowd up with a short bit, and unlike the usually underwhelming dusted off material of once greats like Tommy Davidson or Damon Wayans when they have MC duties, Doug hits some great notes with a bit about how relationships are like a football game, with you as starting QB, your girl as head coach, and a guy sittin’ on the bench ready to get into the game. Funny stuff, and he seems to get the ball rolling.

The first comic up is Don “D.C.” Curry; an older comic who’s been a staple in black comedy circles and mainstream clubs for decades. He shows a real understanding of the crowd he’s playing to (which in this case is a 98% black Washington D.C. audience, fitting with his D.C. nickname). He’s able to get some weird mix of topical humor, including pop culture references like when Alec Baldwin cussed out his kid a year or so ago, and put it in the normal “here’s how white people act, and here’s how black folk would handle it” motif.

The second of the two comics showcased for this episode is Rickey Smiley, someone who seems like a relative newcomer, but doesn’t cater to the lowest common denominator that a lot of the younger generation of black comics seem to. His delivery is stories, but interesting in that they are tragedy laden and he delivers them with a relatively serious delivery, admonishing the crowd jokingly for some of their reactions to stories that shouldn’t be funny, but are. It’s an interesting, unique and fresh twist on story telling comedy, and works pretty successfully.

The show itself isn’t going to be groundbreaking. As an outlet for black comics, it’s good that Martin Lawrence is taking risks with putting some relatively unseen talent outside of the black community on a big stage, and he has made some pretty intelligent choices for the show. For one, he’s at each of these episodes in the balcony, so he’s able to really show support for what this program is about. He also only has a few comics in each episode, so unlike other mainstream comedy “specials” on Comedy Central and the like, these comics are able to actually show you more than a two minute snippet of their material.

As a white guy who has watched standup my whole life, I’m able to watch niche comics like black or Hispanic comics, older, younger, etc., and be able to appreciate the whole spectrum of material. If they want a largely black audience, I think that’s what they’re going to get and they should be happy that they’ve nailed the demo. However, if they’re wanting to encourage a large demographic for the show, they have to either have some more diverse comics on the program, or at least encourage material that’s going to translate to wide audiences.