I hope you all tuned into Thursday’s Season 2 premiere of USA Network’s witty spy series Burn Notice, which marked Tricia’s debut appearance as Carla, Michael’s new handler and the face of the people who burned him. Here’s our quick recap of the episode, please highlight to read:

Disavowed spy Michael’s long-desired meeting with the people behind his burn notice doesn’t go as planned, when instead of a meet, Michael gets a smokey female voice at the other end of a phone line calling herself Carla and a new “job” as assigned by her — assisting a blackmailed computer technician in obtaining heavily secured data from the databases of private security firm Security Associates. Eager to get his life back and driven by what’s at stake, Michael completes the job with the help of his friend Sam and trigger-friendly ex-girlfriend Fiona, but is again snubbed of an opportunity to meet the mysterious Carla, whom he narrowly misses at a local cafeteria, where he’s left with only a filled out crossword puzzle and the message, “Enjoy the puzzle. I’ll see you soon.”

I’m afraid Tricia contribution to the season premiere mainly consisted of voice work as the “smokey” voice on the phone, but she does make an onscreen appearance right at the end of the episode — and as always, she looks amazing. Roughly 40 medium-res screen captures have been added to the gallery.

Don’t forget to tune into episode 2.02 “Turn and Burn” next Thursday (July 17), in which Tricia will make her second confirmed guest appearance as Carla. If you can’t wait that long, check out the weekly preview clip (feat. Tricia!) of the upcoming episode on the series official site index page. Please visit Tricia Helfer Fan again next week for more coverage! Meanwhile, enjoy the caps.

New Photo Albums:

• ‘Burn Notice’ Episode 2.01 “Breaking and Entering” Screen Captures

Don’t forget to check out Tricia in her recurring role of Carla in Season 2 of USA Network’s Burn Notice! Season 2 will premiere today at 10/9c. We here at Tricia Helfer Fan will, of course, do our best to cover it.

While you wait for the season premiere to air, you might want to check out TV Guide’s Burn Notice Season 2-oriented article with some interesting details about the show and interview quotations from the series’ production team, including Tricia. Don’t worry, the article should be rid of any major spoilers. From TVGuide.com:

When presented with the opportunity to make the cast a party of five, Helfer enthusiastically signed on, even though it means whirlwind commutes to the Battlestar set in Vancouver while both shows are in production. “You can’t be a Cylon forever,” laughs the 34-year-old Canadian, who’ll soon shoot Battlestar’s series finale, due in 2009. “And I tell ya, we were starting to get to the point where we’d have to discuss how Cylons age. Because I don’t really look like I did five years ago.”

Someone on YouTube has posted a short Burn Notice Season 2 TV spot featuring Tricia as Carla. Go check it out while you still can!

There’s been a lot of press coverage on Tricia and Burn Notice of late — and there’s more. The Chicago Tribune recently sat down with Tricia to discuss her involvement in Burn Notice as well as the 4th and final season of Battlestar Galactica. Although there’s been a lot of press coverage on all this throughout the year, this interview is a touch more insightful and interesting than the average article; I’d have a look if I were you.

Here are some news tidbits on the aforementioned series, as revealed by the Chicago Tribune interview:

• Filming of Battlestar Galactica will in all likelihood wrap up this month, either on Jul 7, 10 or 12 (exact date varies with source), after which Tricia will return to Miami to shoot more Season 2 material for Burn Notice until October ‘08. While she keeps all Battlestar Galactica series’ finale secrets to herself, Tricia promises Red Eye Chicago the concluding episode will answer a lot questions.

• Tricia will appear as Carla in the first two episodes of Burn Notice, after which Carla again returns in the series’ mid-season finale, episode 9. Carla will also be featured in some of the post-hiatus episodes, but which these episodes are is yet to be revealed.

• Tricia confirms she has signed on to do Fox’s Inseparable pilot, for which filming takes place in August ‘08.

Press Links:

• Helfer of ‘Battlestar Galactica’ puts the sizzle in ‘Burn Notice’ (Chicago Tribune)
• Helfer on ‘Battlestar’ finale: It’s awesome (Red Eye Chicago)

The Academy of Television Arts & Sciences recently revealed their 10 semi-finalists for the award for Best Drama Series — and, unfortunately (and rather bafflingly, to me), Battlestar Galactica is not among them. Here are the Top 10 candidates for the award, courtesy of E!Online:

Boston Legal, Damages, Dexter, Friday Night Lights, Grey’s Anatomy, House, Lost, Mad Men, The Tudors, The Wire.

Personally, I can’t say I agree with even half of these choices (and certainly not over Battlestar Galactica), but oh well…

Another quiet day in terms of Tricia news. However, Entertainment Weekly has a really great preview of the upcoming second season of USA Network’s spy series Burn Notice, in which Tricia will have a recurring role as the mysterious Carla. The article is particularly useful for those who are not yet familiar with the show, and those who need no introduction to the series might want to skip to the Tricia-part of the interview, which includes interview excerpts as well as a more detailed description of Carla and her position in the story. From EW.com:

That doesn’t mean Nix doesn’t feel pressure to keep Burn Notice red-hot, and to that end the series will introduce a new character this season: a mysterious spy played by Tricia Helfer, best known as Battlestar Galactica’s slithery Cylon Number Six. ”I had coffee with her yesterday; it was ridiculously exciting,” says Nix with a laugh. ”She plays Carla, the public face of the folks that burned Michael. It was made clear at the end of last season that Michael is being recruited into something, that people have plans for him, and she’s the one who delivers those plans. And it puts him in this interesting relationship, which is, in order to find out more about who burned him, he has to play along to find out what they’re doing, and get some leverage with Carla, to get off the blacklist. It’s a fun tension — he has to play nice, but not too nice.”

As for the 34-year-old Helfer, as much as she loves Battlestar, she also appreciates working in a more earthly environment. ”I’m still finishing up work on Battlestar Galactica,” she says, ”and any offers I’ve been getting for jobs after that have been, as you can imagine, very sci-fi, and I don’t want to get pigeonholed in that genre, as well as knowing that I’ll probably never get sci-fi material as good as Battlestar. I’m a fan of Burn Notice, and I also know I’ll probably never get offered a role in a thriller that’s as smart and funny as this.”

Sounds like my kind of series! Don’t forget to tune into the season premiere on July 10 at 10/9c. We here at Tricia Helfer Fan will of course be sure to do our best to cover it. Stay tuned!

The winners of the 34th Annual Saturn Awards have been announced, and unfortunately Battlestar Galactica is not among them. The series was nominated for Best Syndicated/Cable Television Series, Best Presentation on Television (for Battlestar Galactica: Razor) and Best Actor in a Television Series (for Edward James Olmos). The awards, however, went to Dexter, Family Guy: Blue Harvest and Matthew Fox (Lost) respectively.

Don’t forget to vote Tricia and Battlestar Galactica to victory at the 2008 SyFy Genre Awards! Voting is ongoing at the SyFy Portal — you can vote once a day per email address until July 25, 2008. Battlestar Galactica recently hauled in an impressive 11 nominations, including a Best Supporting Actress nom for Tricia. Go vote now!

There’s been a lot going on with Tricia of late, hasn’t there? There’s more; here’s today’s last, Burn Notice-oriented update.

Maureen Ryan of The Chicago Tribune recently sat down with Burn Notice creator Matt Nix to discuss the series second season, and naturally, Tricia’s involvement came up in the discussion. According to the article, Tricia will appear in multiple episodes of the season, including 2.01 and 2.02. From ChicagoTribune.com:

This season, Battlestar Galactica’s Tricia Helfer has a recurring role as Carla, a representative of the person or people who “burned” Michael. She’s in the first two episodes of Season 2 and her character will return just before the mid-season finale arrives (USA is airing nine episodes of Burn Notice this summer). Helfer will also appear in some of the seven Season 2 episodes that will air in 2009.

Maureen Ryan: Not to change subjects, but how did you become aware of Tricia Helfer [who plays Michael’s mysterious “handler,” Carla, this season]?

Matt Nix: We were all aware of her from Battlestar and we adored her from Battlestar. We were racking our brains trying to figure out who would be Carla, and co-executive producer Alfredo Barrios saw in the Hollywood Reporter that she’d just signed a deal with Fox, and he ran in and said, “She’s perfect!” And I was like, “Yes, that’s it!” But she had just signed a deal with another network. I thought it would never work, but then it did [in part because Burn Notice is made by Fox’s TV studio].

She just kind of got the show immediately and she has that kind of attitude, she talks the right way, and everyone was just immediately comfortable. And we’re just fans of other shows, it’s not an accident we’ve got a Battlestar person [the show also had Battlestar's Lucy Lawless as a guest last season] and we’ve cast a few people from Dexter on our show.

Furthermore, for those interested in the series, TV Squad recently visited the series’ production on set in Miami. The article doesn’t contain anything Tricia-specific that we haven’t heard before, but you might want to have a look nonetheless.

Finally, in other news, voting for the 2008 SyFy Genre Awards has begun at SyFyPortal.com. You have 30 days to vote Tricia and Battlestar Galactica to victory. Vote now!

Some of you will surely remember how some months back we reported that Tricia had signed a talent holding deal with Fox. Well, it would seem the deal is about to produce some results, as according to The Hollywood Reporter Tricia will co-star in Fox’s drama pilot Inseparable. From The Hollywood Reporter:

Tricia Helfer has been tapped to co-star on Fox’s drama pilot Inseparable — . Inseparable, from ABC Studios and writer/exec producer Shaun Cassidy, is a modern-day Jekyll and Hyde tale about Justin/Clyde (Lloyd Owen), a partially paralyzed forensic psychiatrist with a split personality whose alter ego is a charismatic criminal.

Helfer (Battlestar Galactica) will play Mason Wicks, a psychiatrist who evaluates suspects for the police department. The casting stems from the talent holding deal Helfer inked with Fox in April. Also cast in the pilot is Morgan Turner as Justin’s daughter Emily.

That’s great news! Congratulations on the pilot, Tricia!