The running time is 2 hrs. 10 mins.
"Prison Break" is the hit new show from Fox that I cannot see carrying on for too much longer as it is a premise that is bound to get old and is initially so ridiculous it really should have been adapted into a feature film as opposed to a television series.
The show centers around two brothers, Lincoln (Dominic Purcell) is in jail for murdering the Vice President's brother and Michael (Wentworth Miller) has just gotten himself thrown in the very same jail so that he can break good old Lincoln out. You see Michael has a plan, he is a structural engineer that helped design the Fox River Penitentiary and not only does he know the layout, he has had them tattooed all over his upper-torso. Of course the escape route is tattooed in a secret code, but it is there nonetheless and with time running out on Lincoln the plan must be hatched soon.
Meanwhile, on the outside, Veronica (Robin Tunney), Michael's defense attorney and longtime friend of both Michael and Lincoln, is working on clearing Lincoln's name as the inevitability that the entire thing was a setup becomes increasingly obvious. This, along with several other factors, is where the show goes from intriguing to ridiculous.
First off, the escape plan Michael has is just about as impossible as any plan ever hatched. Next, he has to rely on convicted felons to not only keep his secret but also help him pull off the escape. On top of all that, I can only try and wonder why Veronica is even making an effort to clear Lincoln's name if he is just going to try and break out of prison anyway. Last I checked breaking out of prison is just as illegal as several of the things people can do to get in there, despite whether you were framed in the first place or not. Ultimately Lincoln will be found innocent of his original crimes and then thrown back in jail for breaking out of it, and this also makes me wonder what Michael thinks is going to happen with his life considering he would have legitimately broken the law to get into jail and then been part of an elaborate plan to break out and breaking out several other killers, rapists and who the hell knows what else. Sounds to me like he doesn't need to make any plans for Christmas.
On top of the 22 season one episodes this DVD set also includes six audio commentaries on select episodes including the pilot, three making of featurettes, a Fox Movie Channel special showing the making of a "Prison Break" scene and some alternate and deleted scenes.
Of the group of special features the best of the bunch is the feature called "Beyond the Ink" because while the huge tattoo Michael sports is just silly it is interesting to see how it is applied. It is basically a four hour process as they apply the design created by Tom Berg, who also designed the tattoo used in Red Dragon for director Brett Ratner. Ratner is an executive producer on "Prison Break" and also directed the pilot episode. One thing that is interesting in the making-of special feature is Ratner actually found Wentworth Miller when he was attached to direct Superman for Warner Bros. While Ratner never actually made Superman he did remember Miller from the Clark Kent casting sessions and ultimately hire him on as the lead for "Prison Break." Interesting to think this guy may have been the Man of Steel had Ratner ended up directing Superman.
Overall, "Prison Break" has the feel of a one hit wonder. The show really feels like a cheap Shawshank Redemption with such cheesy characters as "T-Bag" (yeah, that's his nickname) trying to pull off the role much in the way that Mark Rolston pulled off the role of Bogs in Shawshank only it doesn't work in the slightest and only gets more and more annoying. If I were to look for bright spots Stacy Keach does a good job in limited time as warden Henry Pope, Peter Stormare is always fun as he stars as former mob boss John Abruzzi and Purcell is also good as Lincoln. The biggest problem, all logic aside, is Wentworth Miller; he is just not a good actor. The dark and brooding feelings he tries to bring come off as cheesy and fake.
I can't envision "Prison Break" surviving for too long on Fox. Perhaps if the show swung over to FX and enjoyed 15 episode seasons and a little more edge it would stand a better chance, but I can't help but think that sooner or later the writers are going to run out of ways to drag out the story and audiences are going to slowly find other ways to occupy their Monday nights.