TDL’s Sports, Wrestling, & Otherwise

I actually watched season one of Prison Break two years ago. It was the second television series I ever Netflixed. The plan was to watch all the season one episodes as I was DVRing season two and then I’d catch up. As it turned out, that DVR decided to randomly delete itself and I lost all the saved things. I got annoyed and really didn’t feel like watching all the episodes on MySpace so quite some time ended up passing before season two bubbled to the top of my Netflix queue.

The Good

• The set-up for this show is great. Brother on death row for a crime he didn’t commit. Other brother is crazy OCD planner who creates a meticulous plan to get himself sent to prison to break his brother out. He tattoos this plan on himself — including the blueprints to the prison — hidden in this tremendously intricate design of religious imagery. He has everything planned out, from who he’s going to ask for help in the prison to where he’s going to take his brother when he’s done.
• I like heist movies and season one is basically a 22-episode heist movie. With an entire season, they can tell the heist story much more intricately than any movie could. We get every aspect of the escape plan, including the guys who Michael planned on including and the guys who just happened to find out about it. I love the way the entire escape plan was executed
• Wentworth Miller’s Michael Scoffield makes this entire season. He plays the brooding character to a tee. For most of the season, he rides the border between possible psychopath and loving brother perfectly. He believably charms the skirt of the prison doctor into leaving the door open for their escape. He charms his way into the warden’s office using his past as a structural engineer. He’s good enough at it that you can suspend most disbelief at the chain of events that leads to the escape.

The Bad

• For the great way the story was constructed, it does force you to make a couple pretty huge leaps of faith. First, that Michael is put in a cell with a guy who is so desperate to break out that he’s willing to gamble on a huge sentence extension when he only has six months left on his sentence. Second, D.B. Cooper just happens to be Fox River Penitentiary and is willing to hand Michael the five million dollars he’s had hidden forever. Thirdly, you have to buy into the very loosely designed “conspiracy” that put Lincoln on death row in the first place.
• The conspiracy. I could do without it, really. It’s a very sloppily put together conspiracy that reaches all the way to the presidency. Basically, a shadowy “The Company” pulls the strings of the government and somehow their stock price was helped by the assassination of the Vice President’s brother. Instead of framing a guy with no family or friends (you know, a la Oswald) they decide to frame a guy who has a brother, girlfriend, wife, son, and father who all are working themselves to death to get him freed. You’re making this leap of faith that The Company can stage an assassination using any person in the world that they want and they pick this guy who has a family with apparently limitless resources. Not the best decision, really.
• While I understand why they do it, the whole “every corrections officer that works in every prison is a slimy asshole” thing gets old. I understand that when you’re writing a story about prisoners that the COs are the foils and, therefore, to root for the prisoners you have to make the COs the bad guy… but come on. I’m sure that every corrections officer in Illinois is not shady.
• Additionally, Michael just happens to fall in with four guys who are really great guys but who happened to either be very desperate or were set-up? Michael is in prison for his plan, Lincoln was set-up by the government, Sucre was trying to provide for his girl, Haywire is crazy, C-Note was set up by the army, and Tweener was sentenced to five years for stealing baseball cards. Of the escapees, only Abruzzi (mobster) and T-Bag (serial rapist/killer serving multiple life sentences) and they can’t even resist giving T-Bag a checkered past where he was the product of a…… let’s say “checkered” family life. I’m believing that 7 of every 8 guys in prison is there for noble reasons or because they couldn’t help it? Really?

The Rest

If I seem like I’m complaining a lot, don’t be put off… I really liked season one. Mostly these are minor nitpicks about the characters. Some sloppily designed plot-holes aside, I think this was one of the better 2005 debuts. Most of the casting was spot on and Robert Knepper’s performance as T-Bag should have earned him some kind of supporting actor award by now. He toes the line between creepy, horrifying, and pathetic with amazing skill. He somehow manages to portray a character that you desperately want to see die but occasionally, despite your best intentions, find yourself feeling sorry or almost rooting for.

Season one earns a strong Netflix recommendation.