05.24.08
2007-2008 Season Post-Mortem Part 3: “Prison Break”
This season, I’ll be summing up this unusual 2007-2008 season with a post-mortem on the majority of the shows I’ve reviewed during the year, ranking from the very worst to the very best. In some cases, the term “post-mortem” is all too applicable. This is Part 3 of this 11-step journey, focusing on the third season of “Prison Break”.
The third season began in about as goof a place as the writers could have hoped for: Michael, Mahone, T-Bag, and Bellick in a Panamanian prison, with Lincoln on the outside struggling to help Michael get out. The final moment of the second season had been intense, and unlike the first prison Michael had to escape, there was no master plan. Michael was up against his greatest challenge yet. And with the Company holding Sara and LJ hostage, pushing Michael to escape with a fellow prisoner on a tight deadline, the elements were all there.
All too soon, it started to fall apart. The dark, foreboding halls of Sona soon gave way to a sunny, sunlit plaza with prison trappings. The situation was still very dangerous, but it lacked the visual tension of Fox River. It was also apparent that the formation of Escape Squad Part Deux would be less inventive. It didn’t take long to recognize who would eventually be a part of the team, and what it would take to get them there.
After setting up the Michael/Mahone conflict in the second season, the writers seemed to ignore it for a bit too long in the third. Instead, the nemesis is a character code-named Susan B. Anthony (subtle, it is not), a woman with a horrible past as a covert operative and something of a bloodlust. She’s supposed to be a femme fatale, but it doesn’t quite work. Lincoln also gets a new love interest, but it took a while for the chemistry to develop.
These were problems that could have been resolved with the right balance. For example, Whistler and Lechero were too good additions to the cast, and they added something to the story that would have otherwise been missing. The same was not true, unfortunately, of T-Bag and Bellick. T-Bag, at least, was eventually critical to the overall season arc, based on his position as Lechero’s toady. Unfortunately, that took a very long time to become apparent.
Bellick, on the other hand, was given almost nothing to do, and every minute that focused on the character felt like an eternity. Initially it was fun watching the abusive guard get his protracted comeuppance, but episode after episode of degradation quickly became tedious and excessive. I’m not sure what the writers thought they were doing with the character that was so interesting, but I suspect they discovered that they had no idea what to do with him at all.
All of which pales in comparison to the most egregious error made during the season: the inexplicable decision to kill off Dr. Sara Tencredi after a discussion with the network convinced the producers that her death would be a great motivation for Michael. With the very public announcement that Sara will return alive and well in the fourth season, her apparent decapitation stands as a ludicrous reminder that the writers have no long-term game plan. It’s hard to tell if the decision to kill Sara or the one bringing her back was the greater insult to the fans.
So, while the return to the original premise of breaking out of prison was welcome, the execution was less than stellar. It didn’t help that the full Sona story was cut short by the writers’ strike, but many of the wounds were self-inflicted. It’s hard to see how the writers will keep the story fresh for the fourth season, given that the series has already exceeded its reasonable lifespan. That said, the third season earned a Critical Myth average rating of 7.2, just a hair below the second season and still slightly above average as a whole. Hopefully that’s a sign that the series still has enough going for it to justify its continuance.
