'Prison Break' Pushes The Boundaries
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Published: August 29, 2008
Just when you think that Fox's Monday night adrenaline rush "Prison Break" has stretched the boundaries of plausibility about as far as one can go, the macho action series pushes the line again.
Back on Monday night with a two-hour season debut, "Prison Break" will bring a character back from the dead this season and hero Michael Scofield apparently will be breaking into a prison this time.
The tagline for this season is "the only thing harder than breaking out is breaking in."
This will be the fourth time that Michael (Wentworth Miller) will have to hang with the ragtag band of characters that has amazingly been in and out of prison together.
They've broken out of prison, been on the run, stolen $5 million, broken out of prison again and now they are helping the government.
"I think we not only jumped the shark long ago, I think we're inventing new sharks," Miller said. "We're taking it to a whole new level."
Last season, viewers were shocked when it appeared that the Sara Tancredi (Sarah Wayne Callies) character was beheaded.
But fans learned over the summer that she will be back for season four. Was last season a dream or has "Prison Break" entered the world of science fiction?
"I think we address it as plausibly as possible," says Wentworth Miller who spoke with the media during a recent telephone news conference.
He says there will be an explanation that may seem a little fantastic but that's the nature of the series.
"And we don't tease the audience," he says. "She's back in first episode. Michael and Sara are reunited, and then the gang hits the ground running because there's work to do."
Joining the cast this season is Michael Rapaport ("The War at Home," "Boston Public") as a government agent who wants to bring down the evil conspiracy-driven group known as "The Company."
This allows the same recurring character to unite once again, including television's most fascinating villain, T-Bag Bagwell (Robert Knepper).
"Yeah, you can't kill old T-Bag," says Knepper who spoke with The Tribune during the recent Television
Critics Association's fall preview tour in Beverly Hills. "I've played a lot of bad guys over the past 20 years but T-Bag is the most complex and dangerous," he says. "People stand back and give me a lot of space when I walk through airports now."
Miller says "Prison Break" fans want to see the "old friends and foes' come back.
"We will be standing together, to take on The Company and I think, if anything, that's what remains the same about 'Prison Break,' season in and season out," he says.
The playing field may change but "at its core the show is about six or seven alpha dogs shoved in a cage fighting together, at each others' throats, but still having to work together to achieve some common goal," he says.
Miller has high praise for Knepper noting that the psychopathic murderer is still hanging in there. "It's really a testament to Robert Knepper that his character has survived through four whole seasons. But [T-Bag] is a maniac, a psychopath and a child killer and a rapist, and yet he and the boys are still digging ditches together," Miller says.
"We've battled many serious adversaries in past seasons," Millers says. "This time we stand up and fight. It's time to take on the puppet master and really put this whole conspiracy thing to bed."
SPOILERS BELOW!!!
Season three ended with Michael getting out of a Panama hell hole of a prison. He and Lincoln (Dominic Purcell) were on the run in Central America, Sara was dead, and many of the original Fox River Penitentiary gang was still stuck behind bars.
In the season debut, Michael and Lincoln return to the United States to work for a government agent who's secretly investigating The Company. Soon former guard Brad Bellick (Wade Williams), escapee Fernando (Amaury Nolasco) and disgraced former agent Alexander Mahone (William Fichtner) join their team. All of them are promised a pardon if they can bring down the bad guys.
Meanwhile, T-Bag is on the loose with a suitcase full of money. And he is meaner than ever with another over-the-top gruesome thing that he does.
At least two characters go down in gunfire but as we have learned with Sarah, death isn't always final on this show.
Reporter Walt Belcher can be reached at (813 259-7654 or wbelcher@tampatrib.com.
