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"PRISON BREAK" IS ABSURD …
AND OH SO MUCH FUN
September 9, 2005
The long wait until "24" returns is always excruciating for those, like me, who love their TV action fast and fearless, regardless of any logic gaps that appear along the way. Well, Fox must feel our pain because, this fall, they've given us "Prison Break" to fill the Monday at 9 p.m. slot until Jack Bauer reclaims it early next year.
The decision to split that time slot among these two shows, ensuring that each will run nonstop with no reruns, is a sound one, as both "Prison Break" and "24" are heavily serialized shows with jaw-dropping twists often capping each episode. These mini-cliffhangers led to some horrific four-week gaps between new episodes that plagued the early seasons of "24."
With Fox's new time-slot sharing program in place here, that inconsistent viewing is no longer a worry. And until "24" returns, I happily have no problem recommending that you reserve the hour each week to watch "Prison Break," a series that isn't quite as much fun as "24" but still has a breezy style and crackling energy all its own.
"Prison Break" stars the charismatic Wentworth Miller (who reminds me of Nicky Katt, who used to play Harry Senate on the ill-fated "Boston Public") as Michael Scofield, a man who gets arrested for armed robbery on purpose so he'll be sent to the same prison which already holds his brother, Lincoln Burrows. Burrows (Dominic Purcell) is on death row for killing the vice president's brother; except, Burrows maintains he's innocent and the victim of a vast government conspiracy, a fact the viewer is led to believe is true because, hey, what good is a show like this without a vast government conspiracy anyway?
You see, Scofield is a structural engineer who helped design the prison. Using that knowledge, along with a wealth of pre-arrest planning and research, he plans to spring both himself and his brother - and possibly a cellmate and an ex-mob boss - out of the big house. Meanwhile, Veronica Donovan (Robin Tunney), Scofield's lawyer and Burrows' ex-girlfriend, works on the outside to expose the real killer and try not to get killed in the process.
As you may have guessed, "Prison Break" is a show with a lot of crazy things going on at once. Some make sense; some, not so much. But any plot holes are easy to ignore when you're enjoying all the creative machinations of Scofield's prison-break master plan. For starters, his entire torso is covered with a massive tattoo that hides the design schematics for the prison, as well as key names, numbers, and other mysterious info that will be needed to pull off such an improbable escape.
Only three episodes in, he's already faking diabetes to obtain weekly access to the prison hospital ward, and he's playing a dangerous game with the aforementioned mob boss, John Abruzzi (the always-creepy Peter Stormare, of "Fargo"), dangling, but not revealing, the location of a mafia turncoat in return for a breakout-day plane ride. The "negotiations" with Abruzzi haven't always gone smoothly. They've cost Scofield two of his toes, thus far.
"Prison Break" is what it is, and that's high-concept, ridiculous fun. You can't help but roll your eyes when Scofield earns leverage with the prison warden because the warden wants to use Scofield's engineering knowledge to help him build a replica of the Taj Mahal for his wife. Yeeeeah … riiiiight.
Still, if you love "24," it's not a stretch to say you'll also enjoy "Prison Break," which certainly can't be accused of being dull or formulaic. Scofield's moving fellow inmates around like pieces of some living puzzle. And, like any good puzzle, once you see those pieces sliding about, it's hard not to stick around to see how they all fit together in the end.
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