Tuesday, April 11, 2017

What I’m Watching: Prison Break (Season Premiere)


Prison Break: Season 5, Episode 1 “Ogygia” (B-)

If I had been asked to pick a show that went on way too long and didn’t need to be revived, I think that “Prison Break” would have been towards the top of the list. I thoroughly enjoyed the first season and the first half of the second season, and everything after that is pretty terrible. What surprised me about this inexplicably-revived show in its fifth season premiere is that it wasn’t actually so awful. One of the incredible – maybe uncredible is a more accurate word – facets of this show is that it has killed off nearly all of its characters yet managed to revive them with a simple explanation that, oh, their death must have been faked, and now they’re alive again! I was impressed that Lincoln decided almost right away that he had to dig up Michael’s grave to know definitively that he wasn’t dead. How he got a ticket to Yemen without much effort – and no real funds to do so - returned to this show’s less believable tendencies, and that’s where the suspension of disbelief has to come in. I’ve also gotten used to seeing stars Wentworth Miller and Dominic Purcell together as best bud criminals on “Legends of Tomorrow,” so it’s jarring to see them here in the totally different and far purer roles that they originated. Having C-Note being a Muslim jihadist is an interesting twist that seems too progressive for a show of such little intellectual depth, and I enjoyed the casting of the clearly Israeli actress Inbar Lavi, currently starring on “Imposters,” as Sheeba, his Yemeni contact. I’m not overly optimistic about the enduring quality of this show, but my expectations aren’t nearly as low as they initially were. It might even be fun!

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