stuff is cool

In the last post I said I really only watch two shows, 24 and Lost. Well, to be quite honest, Meg and I have been kinda falling into Prison Break as well. We didn’t actively seek out the show to watch it, it just happens to occupy the time slot before 24 and, well, my mom watches it and we’re over there on Monday nights so we go ahead and watch it too. Since we came in a little past halfway into the season at first it seemed like we missed too much to really catch up, but it’s come together pretty nicely and my mother has been pretty patient with me and Meg (mostly me) asking questions.

(note: plot discussion of Prison Break follows, so if you’re behind or if you may want to watch it later, it’s probably a good idea not to read)
However, I don’t see myself making a point to watch Prison Break next season like I probably will with the other two series. Of course, that may hinge on what happens in tonight’s episode, since supposedly they escape tonight. At first, I thought “well, that’s a short series,” but I’ve heard rumors that there will be a The Fugitive-like component to a future season, so I’m thinking that some, if not all, of the escapees-to-be will make it out. So either the main characters both make it out, only one of the two makes it, or neither make it. And really, any way I look at it, I can’t see any satisfactory result.

If both make it, it becomes The Fugitive where I’m sure Michael will end up being something like Macgyver, keeping them alive and on the run all the while cutting to the boring political coverup plot with “that chick from The Craft” (yeah, I know it’s Robin Tunney, but I’m sure most casual viewers wouldn’t) and the rest of the other boring non-characters on the outside.

If only Michael makes it, then well, where the hell do you go from here? Is he going to break back in to Fox River to get his brother?

If neither make it, then any reasonable prison system would transfer them away from each other and probably into a higher security facility (although they might be in a max security facility already … time to put them in a supermax).

If only Lincoln makes it .. well, this may actually be satisfactory. Of course, again I would think Michael would be transferred out of Fox River since he seems to know all to well how to get out of there. But then what? There are a few possibilities: we go back to the Macgyver idea where Michael figures out how to break out of his new facility without having been the structural engineer behind it, or we degenerate into a boring political drama about Lincoln’s framing and eventually Michael gets pardoned or something, or perhaps even it just becomes a prime-time major-network friendly version of Oz with Michael biding his time. Okay, so maybe it wouldn’t be satisfactory.

Basically, unless the Prison Break writers manage to come up with something fiendishly clever, chances are I’ll only be catching their show next season as I flip by my local Fox affiliate. Or if they keep it in its pre-24 time slot.