So far, the writers' strike has taken The Daily Show and The Colbert Report away. Now, it has made an impact on Prison Break. (On the side, I'll just mention that I completely side with the writers on this one. I blame the studios for messing things up. As they so often seem to do. But back on point....)
Clearly, tonight's episode of Prison Break was meant to be "just another episode." The show's writing staff had planned for a mid-season break, but they were planning it for a few more episodes down the road. Despite the fact that tonight's episode contained another failed escape attempt, and the admittedly significant plot development of Michael apparently being taken out of Sona, the story didn't really feel like it came to a major head.
Past cliffhangers on Prison Break, be they mid-season or end-of-season, have felt like they've come rushing at you at breakneck pace. Several plot threads were thrown up in the air, characters were in jeopardy, suspense was high. Here, we've ended at a point where no one seems to be in any immediate danger, and though I wish there were more episodes coming, I'm not exactly waiting on pins and needles to see what happens next.
I've more been starting to dread what will happen to the story of Prison Break if the writers' strike drags on for several months, as is looking more and more likely. Prison Break's ratings at the start of this season had dropped off rather significantly. Several fans took big issue with the (unavoidable) death of Sara, and have stopped watching because of it. The creators had started mounting plans for a Prison Break spinoff set in a womens' prison -- and it seems unlikely they were thinking of running both that show and the original simultaneously.
In other words, things have been starting to look quite a lot like this will be the last season of Prison Break. And you know, if the story would end well (in the narrative sense, not necessarily "happily"), I could be fine with that. But if the strike drags on long enough to scuttle the whole television season, then what happens? Is FOX likely to renew Prison Break for a fourth season (really the last half of the third season, plus another handful of episodes) just because the story was left incomplete?
Please. This is FOX we're talking about.
So more than the "whatever," dangling non-ending we got tonight, I'm concerned about the possibly of having a similar ending come five more episodes down the road... and for that to unceremoniously turn out to be the actual end.
Not a good time to be a television fan.
3 comments:
I'd hate to see PB leave the air. I look forward to it every week!
Just watched that episode.
Fun stuff but yeah, it wasn't great. Actually, a few "technical" things really bothered me.
Poor writing? Maybe.
First, did The Company really not know about Whistler's alternate apartment? When Susan storms in and starts putting things away in a garbage bag, it really looks like she's thinking she really should have taken care of things earlier. And she LOOKS like she knows her way around, not at all like it's her first visit there.
So if they did know about the place, why not empty it sooner? And if they didn't know about the place -- WHY THE HELL NOT??
Second, it's just stupid for someone holding someone else hostage (i.e. the agent ordered to "take them all out") to be pointing his gun not at the hostage but at your adversary across the street. Because if he shoots and hits you, you probably won't have the time to turn the gun to your hostage and press the trigger. And -- oh, look, that's just what happened.
Third, after all that flying around here and there suspended below the helicopter, how convenient that the escape attempt should fail RIGHT above the spot they departed from? Come on.
And fourth, a very technical thing, but it still bothered me quite a bit: when the pickup truck comes out to try and get the chopper(s) (by the way, I thought they made a very sloppy job of showing clearly that there were two choppers in action there), there are clearly three passengers: two in the cab and one behind, manning the machine gun.
Yet when the helicopter gunner hits the gas tank (or fire a missile, we couldn't tell for sure), the truck is clearly empty when it explodes. And I mean, CLEARLY. Nobody in front, nobody in the the back. At the very least, they could have shot it from an angle that would have hidden the front seats - although there was no way to camouflage the guy supposedly standing in the back. But seriously, how expensive would it have been to set up three cheap, crude dummies in there?
Again, come on.
So, sort of a sloppy episode for me. I hope the rest gets better.
FKL
Can't argue with any of that -- yeah, it was kind of sloppy. All the more reason I hope they get to finish the story "the right way" and redeem this misstep.
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