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Prison Break: Season 4
Fox // Unrated // June 2, 2009
List Price: $49.98 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
The Series:
Ahhh, Prison Break. If the producers only had the nerve to end the show on their own at the end of season two, it would have gone down in history as one of the best TV shows ever. It accomplished what few other shows have ever been able to do: after a tense and suspenseful first season, the show reinvented itself and had an equally exciting second year's worth of episodes. At the end of year two the story the creator's originally intended to tell was over, but since the program was getting high ratings they couldn't just stop while they were ahead. They went on to a generally poor third season where they basically told the first season's story over again, with one difference: this time it sucked.
There was a writer's strike that year however, so I was willing to give the show the benefit of the doubt. Surely the story would have worked better if they had a full season to flesh it out. Right? Actually I wasn't so sure, but maybe they were just going over a rough patch. In any case when Season 4 arrived I was eager to see what happened. Unfortunately my worst fears were realized; the show had jumped the shark a long time ago and season four is a poor reflection of what it once used to be. If anything, it's actually worse than season 3.
I'm assuming that anyone who's reading this knows the basic premise of the story, so I'm not going to recap everything from the beginning. If not, you can read my reviews of the earlier seasons here.
Spoiler Warning: There really isn't any way to review this set without revealing some twists that occur in the first episode of the season. These are revealed, but I'll avoid any other major spoilers.
When the previous season abruptly ended, all of the main characters were out of jail and pretty much free. Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller), having freed his unjustly incarcerated brother, Lincoln (Dominic Purcell), and gotten him to safety, he sets off after Gretchen (Jodi Lyn O'Keefe.) She was the woman who killed the love of his life, Sara (Sarah Wayne Callies), and left her head in a box for
Well, forget all of that. In the first half of the opening double-length episode Gretchen is killed and so is Whistler. That's not too distressing however because Sara is actually alive! It turns out the head that
Okay, let's cut to the chase: Nearly everybody gets arrested once again including Lincoln who has apparently forgotten about his son. Instead of shipping them off to a maximum security prison, a Homeland Security agent named Donald Self (Michael Rapaport) pulls some strings to get them all released (including the next to useless supporting characters) and makes them an offer: if they take down "The Company" he'll wipe their records clean and give them a fresh start. How do they do that? By obtaining "Scylla" an encoded set of data being held by a member of The Company, and decoding it. It sounds easy, but as they start to investigate The Company and Scylla they find that the job is much more complicated than they imagined. To add to their problems The Company is after them too, and has sent one of their best assassins after the group.
They started this season out with a fast an furious pace in the hopes people wouldn't notice how impossibly dumb the original set up was. Most of the characters underwent personality changes simply to get the story moving in the direction they wanted it to go. T-Bag wasn't mad that his bag of cash was stolen? After whining about his son through season 3
I could possibly swallow that if the story was good, like the first two years of the show, but it isn't. It is absurd. Now the show was never one for being incredibly realistic, but in the early years you were always able to suspend your disbelief. Not so in this set of shows. The coincidences, unbelievable luck, and down right impossibilities are just too much to swallow. For example, in one episode they have to break into a heavily guarded house. Everyone looks at the security measures and declares that it is totally impossible to get in, what with the locks, security system and private guard patrolling the place. Yet Our Man Flint, I mean Michael Scofield, figures a way in: he sets off an alarm across the street, and when all the guards run over there and the owner turns off the alarm system so he can see what's going on too, they just walk in. Yeah, right. Most of the breaking and entering this season is like that. I especially liked the way they were able to drill out a cobalt-steel safe in the middle of the day inside of a federal building without anyone noticing. *Sheesh* And don't get me started on the magic cell phone-like device that can copy data from any data storage system within a 10-foot radius, whether it's powered on or not.
The hallmarks of this show are the cliffhanger endings to each episode (and often before commercial breaks) and the frequent twists and turns that plot takes. That's still present, but they are so ridiculous and over the top that it's hard to take them seriously. They repeat the same cliffhanger several times too. I lost count of how many times they were stealing data and the copy bar read 95% when something happened where they'd get cut off a second later. Every time the resolution would be an enthusiastic "Yes! We got it!" The first time it was mildly suspenseful. By the third time it was boring.
One thing I will give this season however, is that they do wrap up the entire story by the end of the season. You get to find out the fate of all of the main characters and that is very satisfying, especially since there's a little surprise at the very end the is reminiscent of the show's earlier, better seasons.
The DVD:
The 22 episodes that make up season 4 arrive on six discs that are housed in a single-width keepcase. Video:
The 1.78:1 widescreen image looks very good though the Blu-ray versions of earlier seasons were more crisp and detailed. It's really too bad that they aren't releasing this season on Blu-ray. As it is thought, the picture is sharp, and the contrast and black levels are all excellent. There are a lot of low light scenes, and these all looked fine, though grain was more evident than in the exterior shots. Details in the shadows are good, though not outstanding. During the exterior scenes the lighting is much brighter, and in these shots the colors are more vivid and solid.
Audio:
This DVD comes with a DD 5.1 track that sounds good, but isn't as intense as the HD tracks on the earlier season's Blu-ray releases. The show is mainly dialog driven, with an occasional gun shot, but nothing more than that. The sound effects and incidental music come through strong and clear and add a lot to the atmosphere that the show has. While the audio doesn't have the same impact and richness as a theatrical feature, it does suit the show well.
Extras:
After skipping commentary tracks on the (horrible) third season, I was a little surprised that they returned with this season. Yet here they are, an impressive nine tracks on various episodes by members of the cast and crew, though most of the lead actors are not to be found including Wentworth Miller, Amaury Nolasco, Robert Knepper, and Wade Williams. (Michael Scofield, Fernando Sucre, T-Bag, and Brad Bellick respectively.)
There are three featurettes too, all found on the last disc. These start out with Fade out: The Final Episode (12 mins) a look at the end of the series and the last telecast story. Next it The Plan, The Execution and The Bullet (11 mins) a breakdown of one of the action scenes from the middle of the season, and finally we get Director's World (13 mins) where executive producer and director Kevin Hooks discusses the look of the show and how each season's overall mood is different due to the changing settings.
Final Thoughts:
This season of Prison Break is much worse than the previous one, and that wasn't very good either. It's like the writers took the worst parts of Mission Impossible and The A-Team and put them together. With ludicrously inane break-ins and thefts, all the while running from the people they are pursuing, the show is just too convoluted and over-the-top for its own good. If you like very, very mindless entertaining this might be worth a rental, but when all is said and done this show has run it's course.
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