I just finished watching "The Final Break" which is the planned direct to DVD follow up to the series that takes place before the final scene of the last aired episode that was 4 years into the future. Beware there will be spoilers present.
All in all, I've got mixed feelings on the series as a whole. I watched season 1 and 2 on DVD and although it had its lame moments, for the most part, it was very good at being unpredictable and created a great drama. Characters were excellent and the series went about as far as any show has gone in making you genuinely think the well being of the main characters could be affected (Michael getting two toes snipped off in the 2nd episode really exemplified this).
Then along came season 3. Michael back in a new jail along with a bunch of his old cohorts, only now in a prison with no guards. Oooooooooh. This idea seemed incredibly forced to me and seemed like the standard 'go with what worked before but try and top the danger level' that so many shows try (24 is a great example). Things just seem so formulaic. In execution however (no pun intended), this place didn't strike me as any more dangerous than Fox River was. I think more bad stuff happened to our characters there than they ever did in Sona.
When the show really jumped the shark for me though was when they supposedly killed off Sarah by beheading her. This was just going waaaay too far and no matter how the writers tried to justify it, it was so obviously just a way of writing out the character because the actress wanted to move on. The plot just kind of meandered on from there trying to make us interested in the mysterious "Company" and excited about another pending prision break. However, we'd seen all this before. The way they tried to keep Sucre relevant by helping the others out (and totally ditching his family in the process) seemed forced. Then the season ended prematurely due to the writers strike. For the first time in any show I collected on DVD, I was very uninterested in buying this new season.
When season 4 showed up, there were some new glimmers of hope. Suddenly, Sarah popped back to life (for the 2nd time now after obviously intending to kill her off both times) with only a lame explanation. I tried not to let this bother me too much though because I thought the series was much better with her than without her.
There were two things that did really bother me though. First, if it was forced why some characters were kept in the plot for season 3, this was exponentially worse. The idea that this wild mishmash of characters would suddenly start working together to bring down the Company was completely preposterous despite any attempts at explanation. Sucre was STILL not with his family he wanted so bad to escape prison to be with, Mahone had killed Mike and Lincoln's father and suddenly they're all working together, but Bellick was the most unbelievable of all - he had absolutely no reason to risk his safety to see the Company brought down. He was reduced from a previously fear-inspiring opportunistic opponent to a stereotypical bumbling whimsical form of comic relief. In any given problematic situation the group faced, each member fit a classic predictable charicature in how they would respond. By this point, I was more than sick of listening to Michael's monotonous plans displaying what a genius he must be. By the time they finally killed off Bellick, it was obvious that it was done because the writers had no idea what the hell to do with the character.
Second problem was that this season destroyed the Company and the General as being fearful adversaries. Whereas when we'd seen Krantz in the past, he only communicated by written note, now he whined and yelled and complained ALL THE TIME. Any sense of mystery was completely lost.
Despite these problems, the show still managed to end decently with the final few episodes and bringing back some interesting characters. The end of the finale actually got me a bit choked up, what with the characters meeting together and the paper crane put on Mike's grave.
"The Final Break" again went back to the same formulaic prison break plot and having to break out Sarah seemed absolutely absurd at this point. What made season 1 fascinating was the chance to become familiar with the prison's functioning and its workers and inmates in the midst of planning an escape around this. A brief two episodes doesn't allow for any of this. For some reason, I was very surprised though that they actually killed off Michael in this. I guess I didn't expect him to die like that. Again, the show did manage to pull off a good ending out of this though with their final scenes.
So, all in all, I'm still not that inspired to buy the final two seasons on DVD, which is a shame what with how good things were early on. So what were other people's thoughts on the show as a whole.
All in all, I've got mixed feelings on the series as a whole. I watched season 1 and 2 on DVD and although it had its lame moments, for the most part, it was very good at being unpredictable and created a great drama. Characters were excellent and the series went about as far as any show has gone in making you genuinely think the well being of the main characters could be affected (Michael getting two toes snipped off in the 2nd episode really exemplified this).
Then along came season 3. Michael back in a new jail along with a bunch of his old cohorts, only now in a prison with no guards. Oooooooooh. This idea seemed incredibly forced to me and seemed like the standard 'go with what worked before but try and top the danger level' that so many shows try (24 is a great example). Things just seem so formulaic. In execution however (no pun intended), this place didn't strike me as any more dangerous than Fox River was. I think more bad stuff happened to our characters there than they ever did in Sona.
When the show really jumped the shark for me though was when they supposedly killed off Sarah by beheading her. This was just going waaaay too far and no matter how the writers tried to justify it, it was so obviously just a way of writing out the character because the actress wanted to move on. The plot just kind of meandered on from there trying to make us interested in the mysterious "Company" and excited about another pending prision break. However, we'd seen all this before. The way they tried to keep Sucre relevant by helping the others out (and totally ditching his family in the process) seemed forced. Then the season ended prematurely due to the writers strike. For the first time in any show I collected on DVD, I was very uninterested in buying this new season.
When season 4 showed up, there were some new glimmers of hope. Suddenly, Sarah popped back to life (for the 2nd time now after obviously intending to kill her off both times) with only a lame explanation. I tried not to let this bother me too much though because I thought the series was much better with her than without her.
There were two things that did really bother me though. First, if it was forced why some characters were kept in the plot for season 3, this was exponentially worse. The idea that this wild mishmash of characters would suddenly start working together to bring down the Company was completely preposterous despite any attempts at explanation. Sucre was STILL not with his family he wanted so bad to escape prison to be with, Mahone had killed Mike and Lincoln's father and suddenly they're all working together, but Bellick was the most unbelievable of all - he had absolutely no reason to risk his safety to see the Company brought down. He was reduced from a previously fear-inspiring opportunistic opponent to a stereotypical bumbling whimsical form of comic relief. In any given problematic situation the group faced, each member fit a classic predictable charicature in how they would respond. By this point, I was more than sick of listening to Michael's monotonous plans displaying what a genius he must be. By the time they finally killed off Bellick, it was obvious that it was done because the writers had no idea what the hell to do with the character.
Second problem was that this season destroyed the Company and the General as being fearful adversaries. Whereas when we'd seen Krantz in the past, he only communicated by written note, now he whined and yelled and complained ALL THE TIME. Any sense of mystery was completely lost.
Despite these problems, the show still managed to end decently with the final few episodes and bringing back some interesting characters. The end of the finale actually got me a bit choked up, what with the characters meeting together and the paper crane put on Mike's grave.
"The Final Break" again went back to the same formulaic prison break plot and having to break out Sarah seemed absolutely absurd at this point. What made season 1 fascinating was the chance to become familiar with the prison's functioning and its workers and inmates in the midst of planning an escape around this. A brief two episodes doesn't allow for any of this. For some reason, I was very surprised though that they actually killed off Michael in this. I guess I didn't expect him to die like that. Again, the show did manage to pull off a good ending out of this though with their final scenes.
So, all in all, I'm still not that inspired to buy the final two seasons on DVD, which is a shame what with how good things were early on. So what were other people's thoughts on the show as a whole.
