Shaun Munro reviews the first episode of Prison Break season 5…
Some eight years after the show’s original run wrapped up, Prison Break has been resurrected by Fox amid their current obsession with nostalgic retreads, reuniting most of the principal cast members with series creator and writer Paul Scheuring. For better and indeed for worse, the new limited event series kicks off in spectacularly ridiculous fashion, likely to serve as familiar comfort food to fans who will themselves admit they’re not watching for particularly coherent storytelling.
Smartly opening with a handy summary of the story up to this point, the first episode nevertheless appears to suggest that this season will be a largely self-contained affair. Yes, new viewers won’t appreciate the character dynamics or various callbacks to prior seasons, but on the basis of “Ogygia”, it functions relatively well on its own.
After Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller) died at the end of the show’s main run, the dubious – if somewhat understandable – decision has been made to resurrect him, with the current nature of that revival obscured. It’s totally, unapologetically absurd and makes season five smack of a certain desperation from the up, reminiscent of Sara’s death and backpedaling resurrection many seasons ago. If you’re going to commit yourself to this nine-episode run, you really need to just roll with Michael being back, because it’s one of the many liberties Scheuring’s script takes with pre-established fact and conventional logic.
The other key players are re-introduced in similarly graceless fashion; T-Bag (Robert Knepper) is implausibly let out of prison and, for reasons unknown, receives a grainy photo of Michael which he then delivers to Lincoln (Dominic Purcell). That’s to say nothing of T-Bag’s peripheral plot this episode, which recalls the series at its most knowingly silly.
Sara (Sarah Wayne Callies) has meanwhile moved on from Michael and married a wet blanket of a man named Jacob (Mark Feuerstein) whose days are probably already numbered, and it’s not long before she has to deal with gun-totting assassins knocking at her door.
The most eyebrow-raising introductions are however reserved for C-Note (Rockmond Dunbar) and Sucre (Amaury Nolasco); the former has converted to Islam for basically story reasons – Lincoln needs a pal to help him navigate a Yemen jail where Michael is being imprisoned – and the latter shows up for a cup-of-coffee cameo before slinking off. Neither characters’ actions feel consistent with their prior characterisation, C-Note having what basically amounts to a personality transplant and Sucre so willingly backing away when Lincoln tells him not to join them in Yemen.
So yes, the writing is as wonky and bizarrely compelling as it always has been, though considering the TV boom that has prevailed in the years since Prison Break first concluded, viewer patience will likely prove much thinner this time. There are lots of scenes of characters talking to themselves for our exposition-laden benefit, outrageously convoluted clues indicating a wider mystery, and a wealth of unintentional comedy as absurd dialogue is delivered totally deadpan for the most part.
There are at least a few moments where the show seems moderately aware of its own trashiness, though; the cheesy new Middle East-spiced theme tune is a howler, and it’s impossible not to chuckle at lines like, “Greetings from the U.S. prison system, bitches!” There’s also a terrifically over-the-top sequence where Linc’s car is remotely hijacked and crashes off the road, catapulting him through the windscreen with the force of a rocket, before he emerges with as little as a scratch seconds later.
It also moves relatively fast – which, with just nine episodes, it basically has to – and the actors largely haven’t missed a step, even if none of them are exactly gunning for Emmys here. Particular credit should go to Purcell, who is hardly the most gifted actor among the show’s cast, but has to carry most of its 42 minutes and does so admirably enough.
The season premiere is effective to a point in terms of crowbarring open an intriguingly daft mystery, even if it is an unmistakably desperate excursion. The riotously over-the-top cliffhanger feels very much like a classic Prison Break “gotcha!” moment, though it also has the potential to be series-derailing if Scheuring blows it, which is basically on the whim of a coin flip.
On the basis of this primer, the new Prison Break could be much worse, and it’s certainly not as blandly fond to cynically replay the base hits as Fox’s calamitously boring 24: Legacy.
Shaun Munro – Follow me on Twitter for more TV rambling.
