Prison Break – Season One
Picture:
C+ Sound: B- Extras: C+ Episodes: C+
The
continued influx of cheap, lame reality TV shows keeps pouring in, but dramatic
narrative series are also being made. Of
course, only a small number of them are really any good, but among the sea of
mostly forgettable series comes TV so bad, it becomes a beacon of trash
TV. After the rise and fall of the great
prison series Oz, Fox and the
ever-annoying Brett Ratner have teamed up again after driving X-Men into the ground with Prison Break.
To
compare this show to Oz is like
comparing genetically altered food to organic gourmet at its best, and that is
an insult to Monsanto, a company I wonder about. This wacky show stars unknown Wentworth
Miller as a man who decides to pull an armed bank robbery to get into a
prison. This is part of a ploy to get
revenge on the man who falsely framed his brother for a crime he did not commit
to the point he has been condemned to death.
Of course, this is covering up an ugly crime on the outside and some
very dangerous people are also a threat on the inside. His solution is to break both of them out of
the dangerous, high security facility.
In the
1960s and 1970s, this could have been a premise with something to offer, but
creator Paul T. Scheuring has created some goofy ins and outs that simply make
this much closer to Hogan’s Heroes
with a touch of Hip Hop than Oz. For one thing, the warden is the ironically
cast Stacy Keach, a figure of law and order as Mike Hammer who has had more
than his share of tabloid-touted troubles.
Then there is the female lawyer played by Robin Tunney, the underrated,
under-used, sexy actress who is the one legitimate link between the inside and
outside for Michael Scofield (Miller) and then Peter Stormare and other capable
actors as either prisoners or corrupt police and guards fill out the rest of
the cast.
There is
the “black” group, the “gay” group, the “Hispanic” group and other groups that
keep to themselves and constantly increase the tensions there. This is the formula for the 22 shows but
handled in the moist shallow ways. Best
of all, and here is a spoiler worth revealing.
Michael has a body tattoo that looks like a set of buildings, but
secretly has the entire blueprint of the prison on him and they never check him
for this?!?
The show
is just that way out there all the time, though it is always “frontin’” and
trying to show some kind of “realism” that seems more feasible for a show from
the 1980s than post-9/11. Yet, it is a
hit of some sort, but for how long? Who
knows? That is the hidden beauty of
trash TV in its ability to defy convention and good taste. The writing is competent enough to keep the
show going, but its soap opera nature is bound to implode on itself via its
lack of substance. At least some good
actors will get work out of this.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is degraded slightly throughout to be
“realistic” or something like that, but it is instead annoying, clichéd and tired,
much like the show. The Dolby Digital
5.1 mix is better and has its surround moments, but dialogue is not always
clean or clear and this is not style. It
is a technical issue. Extras include
eleven audio commentaries on six of the shows, alternate/deleted scenes in
spots, four featurettes and TV spots. If
you like the show, you can really delve into what is here, but most will
eventually get bored and want to watch a bunch of Oz episodes instead.
- Nicholas Sheffo
