Season 4 picks up the action a few weeks after the end of Season 3, with Michael Scofield (the perpetually calm and resourceful Wentworth Miller, whose cool intelligence is one major key to the show’s success) and company busted out of a Panamanian prison and flung to all different points of the compass. And yet, within the closed set of the show and its harebrained logic, it all works, from point to point, at least on the ground level. The show has contorted so much from season to season that when presented with the end point of say Season 3, or the midpoint of Season 2, or the waning winding down of Season 4, there’s no way you could trace backwards to the show’s initial premise in a reasonable, logical manner. But what to do afterwards, after the initial break out in Season 1?įrom there forward, the show has morphed into machismo drenched soap opera mashup, 24 crossed with It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, a crazy scramble after various MacGuffins, be they a giant stash of cash hidden in the desert, or black box device held by the nefarious bugaboo (the blandly named Company – they may as well have just called it Bad Guys, Inc.) running the show’s grand gonzo conspiracy. And the resolution of the initial breakout birthed the convenience of always having our heroes on the run.
Its initial setup as a jail break show was untenable over multiple seasons – no one would watch a show for years where the characters remained mired in the same prison. What has kept Prison Break fresh season to season was its continual reinvention, its inability to sit still and stand pat. The producers’ knowledge of an end in sight infects the writing, and now the characters can see their end too, and the precise moment of definitive cancellation is precisely the moment the show runs out of gas and only limps along.īut before that, the show sustains a high level of haywire action and plotting that has it charging into its most preposterous set up yet with yet another reshuffling of the deck.
It’s always run on an engine of a definitive lack of resolution, of ever elusive freedom and rest from persecution being forever beyond our heroes’ reach. An abrupt pull of the rug might have served it better.
PRISON BREAK SEASON 3 SUMMARY FULL
Although indeed canceled halfway through, the producers were allowed to continue on with a full season of episodes, giving the show a chance to end on its own terms with at least a shot at some resolution.īut this might actually have been to Prison Break’s detriment, the certainty of an end. And given the broadly hinted suspicions that this was would be the final season, and that cancelation was forever imminent, it makes sense that the show would go in to overdrive, trying to cram in as much as possible. Hitting the ground running, the show charges forward recklessly and heedlessly, it’s sole concern to maintain forward momentum, even at the expense of continuity and consistency. And so again, with Season 4, Prison Break’s most schizophrenic, wildly paced, and final entry. You’d almost think it would be too much to handle in concentrated doses, but that’s actually the only way it can work.Įxhausting marathon sessions tap straight into the frantic, exhausting pace and plotting of the show, and, as I’ve mentioned in previous reviews of previous seasons, this viewing strategy precludes stopping to think about just how ridiculous the show is. Like its kindred show, 24, Prison Break suffers from overwhelming overabundance of everything – too much is happening, and too much all at once, to tolerate it doled out in 45-minute batches separated by seven days (or more). I’ve tried to isolate the point of convergence of my frustration and addiction, and after four seasons, I’ve conceded, rather shamefully, for it to be a supreme case of ADD addled impatience. But each season I would throw my hands up in exasperation after two or three episodes and switch off.Īnd yet, each time the same season was released on DVD, I grabbed it immediately upon release and plowed my way through it in a headlong rush over the course of a few days, thoroughly enjoying every second of it and wondering why I ever gave up on it in the first place. With the start of each new season, I would sit down with every intention of watching Prison Break week to week, as it was broadcast, set to give in and give myself over to its ever increasing lunacy.
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