Prison Break Season 4

Well, well, well. The final season of Prison Break is non-compelling to say the least. It starts out pretty good, (3 stars) but dwindles down to 2 stars. I would give Season 1 and 2 five stars because those seasons are worth seeing again.

The first season of the show was absolutely phenomenal. I don't think I've ever seen better TV programming. What is aggravating, is they didn't need to break out of prison so quickly. Season 1 could have been the first attempt that failed. Perhaps Sara unlocked the door, but someone else locked it back. Linc's attorney manages a stay long enough for a second Season 2 they're still in prison and Scofield uses his tatooed blueprints to figure yet another way out.

There was plenty to work with the prison to maintain the intensity and drama for two seasons within the prison. Linc could have gotten a stay right at the end of season one allowing him to escape execution until the end of Season two. More could have been developed with the mafia-guy (aka my Swede) and I could have enjoyed watching him for two seasons instead of one. Who he was and what he was doing didn't make a lot of sense and that could have been clarified.

More could have been done with Bellick. Wade Williams was perfect in that role and it would have been interesting to develop his character more. Here's this big, bully guard on the take, acting all macho and living with his mother. Do something with that. Don't treat him like a cartoon. Let us meet his Bellick's mother and let us learn more why he can't cut the apron strings.

When Linc's lawyer got stuck in that house with the VP's brother, she was immediately killed off. Wait a minute. A house that you can enter and not leave is an interesting concept. Explore it a little bit. Let her be in there for a few episodes trying to get out. Wouldn't the VP's brother be horny and try and rape her? Or would he not do that, but seriously enjoy the company? Would she be able to convince him to do the right thing? Maybe they would try to escape together. See the title of the show is Prison Break, and prisons don't always have to be actual prisons.

Season 2 brought in the brilliant FBI agent Alex. He was able to second guess what Scofield had planned. This was fascinating. Yet, they didn't work with that, they just quickly moved all the cast into Utah (which didn't look like any part of Utah, I've ever seen and I've seen a lot of Utah) and made Alex a dirty cop and a drug addict. It would have taken at least two days of heavy driving of 10 hours or more to go from Chicago to Salt Lake. Yet, these guys seemed to magically arrive in a matter of hours and still have time to start a romance, have a hand sewn back on, and other exciting adventures.

It would have been just as thrilling to allow them a normal amount of time to get to the destination. Come on, these guys are wanted by the law. Some people would recognize them, many wouldn't. They would be leaving a trail, Alex could systematically sniff them out. A few are dangerous, Sara's having a nervous break-down and losing her job. Oh, yeah, and the crazy guy, he was great. I loved him, he could caused all kinds of problems and befuddled the cops because he had no logic. Why didn't they milk this stuff? No, they decided to drag out season 4 which was predictable, cliched and unexciting. Okay, it was a little bit exciting. But the only real reason to watch Season Four is because the characters were so good and interesting we had to find out what happened to them, which was almost exactly how I predicted.

My guess was "Can't hurt a Fly" Scofield was going to kill T-Bag. It didn't quite happen like that.

Probably because I watched Season 4 through Netflix, sans commercial four shows a night, it was easy to catch all the flaws in logic. Scofield has almost superhuman powers in determining his next move, which gets kind of old. Does he really have to be perfect?

Here's some things in Season 4 I didn't believe:

That Self would kill his partner then be good again.

That Bellick would give his life for the cause.

That T-bag cared so much for his mother, when it seemed like she was never really in his life.

They seemed to really contrive some situations in order to keep T-bag in the picture.

That the General would be unguarded with all this stuff going down at the end.

That Scofield's mother would have that much antagonism toward Linc.

That Linc would be 5 hours near death, and then with a little patchwork from Sara be ready to go.

That Kellerman and those two other guys would magically reappear to save the day.

I had problems with Gretchen in Season 4. When she first appeared (Season 3?) she started out as a weak actress and I didn't believe for a minute she was a mean person. Then her acting improved dramatically and I was entranced by how wicked she could be. Although too contrived in putting Gretchen and T-Bag together, their pairing was fun. I wanted to understand their relationship better. Then Self comes on the scene and it was like Gretchen lost her evil edge. Were they goofing off between scenes and she couldn't get back into character?

Neither the General or Scofield's mother were interesting characters. Their quest for world domination and with Michael's super-brain power made this seem more like a Batman movie gone wrong.

This final season dragged on and on, and they decided to milk it some more with the Final Break, which I have not seen, but read about and it sounds stupid. First, I can't believe that given the circumstances Sara would end up in prison for killing Scofield's mom. Didn't she sign a release that gave her immunity from all that anyway? Oh well, it's somewhere down my queue and comes when it comes.