Prison Break. Good Show?

[Dream]

I need a new drama to watch. Prison Break seems like something I might like. I wanted to hear what other people here about about this series. I've heard that the show dips in quality later on. Should I stop watching like after a certain season or watch all of it?

I like dramas like LOST and 24. Great actors, action and plot twists are a plus.

 

[startrekwatcher]

I enjoyed it--I thought the good outweighed the bad myself. It is a nicely done action conspiracy thriller with the kind of scope as an epic action feature. It has a lot of twists and turns, cliffhanger endings, head-spinning pacing. I thought seasons 1 and 4 were its best. S3 was pretty good although some would disagree. S2 is not as good as the others and has that S2 slump that a lot of shows these days tend to have but it isn't awful in the slightest. The characters especially Scofield, Burrows and T-Bag are pretty interesting to watch and the show had some pretty good antagonists in all four years.

I stuck with it until the end and enjoyed the ride although it didn't end all that great in the final four or five episodes of the show.

 

[Candlelight]

I watched the first season but lost interest in season two onwards.

The producers of the show only planned for it to have a limited run, like two or three years tops, but the show kept getting renewed and more blood was squeezed out of the stone.

I never saw the last season but what I saw of the third it looked like it was getting tired.

 

[PsychoPere]

While none of the subsequent seasons equaled season one, I still had a lot of fun with the latter three seasons. Robert Knepper as T-Bag was the stand-out performance by far, though I thought all of the regular and most of the recurring actors were quite good as well. It's a definite adrenaline ride, and reminded me of 24 in that regard.

 

[Mr Light]

I really enjoyed Prison Break. Most of it was excellent. I definitely recommend it. It's very comparable to 24 and it has some great actors and characters in it. Plus the show always looked super expensive, great production values, great action and tension.

Season One: perfect.
Season Two: drastic shift in formula but still entertaining
Season Three: most hated it, I loved it. a return to form.
Season Four Part One: still good.
Season Four Part Two: this was when I finally lost interest. There were so many constant plot twist and betrayals the story lost all coherency and I just stopped caring.
The Final Break (post-series DVD Movie): decent but not necessary to watch.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

The first season is superb. The second season is okay. After that it becomes a joke, but you might stick with it anyway, for the characters. See how it goes.

 

[KB24]

Prison Break started out wonderfully. Seasons 1 and 2 are very good, if in different ways. 3 begins to wane with a bit more of shift and new characters, and four slowly crumbles. I have the first 2 seasons on DVD, but I don't think we bothered getting the rest. The Final Break movie is in our Netflix queue somewhere.

Even though it ended a little ho-hum, I can certainly think of far worse television. Used DVDs are cheap now for the earlier seasons, or rent. I don't know if its streaming anywhere or not.

 

[Jack Bauer]

The series thrived on a lot of plot twists...some came out of nowhere to either shock or surprise you with their absurdity or to keep a 2 season tops show going on for 4 seasons. But they were usually fun though like 24 they often didn't quite make sense. A lot of the time the actors saved the show.

 

[alica]

Its really a good TV show to enjoy. Its going well with its fourth season and previous were too good. Lots of shows are going with it, but its a worth watching and fantastic entertainer of the time . I will not miss it anyways.

 

[PsychoPere]

I don't know if its streaming anywhere or not.

The four seasons can be streamed through Netflix's Watch Instantly Service, and The Final Break is only available for disc rental.

 

[Deckerd]

I watched the first season but lost interest in season two onwards.

I agree. I only watched the original and it was excellent. They only kept it going because it won all kinds of viewer awards. The producers should have had the courage to end it at the natural conclusion

 

[Captaindemotion]

The first season is absolutely brilliant, total cliff-hanger stuff every week. best first season since 24.

I'm in the minority here but I think that S.2 was possibly even better.

S3 was where it all began to go wrong. It should have ended at the end of S.2 but didn't and the writers' strike didn't help. S.4 sorta pulled it out of the fire for a while but it ended disappointingly and the less said about the telemovie, the better.

But check out the first 2 seasons and you won't be disappointed.

 

[Dream]

Thank guys! I picked up the first two seasons. I saw the first two seasons at a store for really cheap at $15 for each. I guess I'll make up my mind on whether to check out the rest of the series later on.

 

[Trekker4747]

Okay show.

The first season is damn-near perfect. The second season is fairly lame, the third season gets back on track, a bit, with re-inventing its own idea, the fourth season? Ugh. Tries to hard to wrap things up and does a shitty (and disappointing) job of it. The movie wraps things up in an even lamer way.

If you're going to watch it, yeah, you'll have to watch all of it but the first season is easily the best.

 

[TV-Tastic]

Hi, first post here!

Dream, if you like shows like 24 and Lost, you'll like PB. It's not that it's like these two shows at all, but it's edge-of-your-seat excitement with a weekly cliffhanger and a whole bunch of mystery thrown in every week.

Although I tend to agree with many of the comments here regarding the show's decline over the four seasons, I think it's a bit of a short-sighted critical analysis of the show as a whole.

The entire four-season run is pretty good overall. If I were to review it today on my blog I'd give the series a solid 7 out of 10. What hurt it was its first season which was so good it simply didn't leave the writers with anywhere to go so for the following three it became a little contrived and very convoluted revolving around government conspiracies and frankly, some really unbelieveable premises. Without a doubt, season one was a 9 to 9.5.

Now is this to say that the show was awful for seasons two through four? No, not at all. Despite all of its flaws, confusion and general eye-rolling silliness, the show was very effective for four seasons for two reasons.

First, it did exactly what it was intended to do and that was keep you guessing every week with new mysteries, frenetic action and compelling mysteries and suspense. Second, and this is the most important aspect ot this or any show, the characters were richly developed and wonderfully casted... all of them.

That being said, I think the problem that most fans had with the show is that it never approached the level of quality that season one was known for. Often we confuse that for being bad. It was never bad, it just never was as good as that first season.

When you're done watching the series, I would highly reccomend the direct-to-video 90 minute movie/episode, Prison Break: The Final Break. As a new PB adventure, it's OK in and of itself, but what's important about it is that it ties up a lot of loose-ends and gives the series as a whole a sense of closure that was absent in the series finale.


-The 'Tastic

 

[Dream]

Hi, first post here!The 'Tastic

Hello there! Welcome to Trekbbs! That was an awesome first post.

 

[Aragorn]

Funny you should post this thread. Just saying... twice.

 

[TV-Tastic]

Hi, first post here!The 'Tastic

Hello there! Welcome to Trekbbs! That was an awesome first post.

Thank, for the warm welcome, Dream!

It dawned on me at the end of writing all of that that I had just done a review of the entire series. I'm going to edit that a little and post it on the blog.

-The 'Tastic

 

[Dream]

Pilot/Allen/Cell Test/Cute Poison

I saw the first four episodes. I'm really liking the show so far. This show has what I consider very important, strong main characters like Michael and Lincoln played by good actors.

I like that Michael is smart, but his plans so far have not gone perfectly. But I hope he starts winning some fights soon. Poor guy is getting beat up too much. His doctor friend is a real hottie.

The actor that plays Lincoln does a good job of playing a good guy framed for a crime he didn't commit. He made some bad choices in life. I can see why he would have been a good fall guy.

Sucre is a funny sidekick for Michael. He is pretty likeable. I hope he doesn't die or anything.

Bellick is one of those evil prison guards. I guess any prison movie where the main character is a prisoner has to have a character like that.

T-Bag really got my attention with his first appreance. Every good show needs a good villain. There is something really menacing about the character but also the actor has lots of charisma. I can see why he becomes popular later on.

The plot with Veronica really drags though. I don't like the actress very much and I just get a feeling that there is no way she is going to be able to prove that Lincoln is innocent. There wouldn't be a show if she could. It feels too much like filler.

Yikes! The toe thing at the end of the second episode was really hard to watch.

The Secret Service guys feel like something out of 24. I hope they get what they deserve eventually. The mysterious woman they talk to on phone makes me chuckle, she is more funny than scary. They are trying too hard to hide her face.

 

[firehawk12]

There's Prison Break news I wanted to post, but now I realized it might be a spoiler.

One of the characters from the show is getting a spin-off series though.