Prison Break: a great show or was it shíte?

IvaBigWun

I decided to watch Prison Break again after coming across it on Netflix. For me very few shows have had as strong a first season as this one.

Season 2 is ok. But now that Ive started on season 3 Im starting to remember how much the quality dips.

Prison Break: a great show or was it shíte? Or somewhere in the middle?

Please use spoilers for any big twists and deaths, like

the head in a box

for example

ziedth

I picked great show but it really REALLY took a dive in quality.

Season 1 was must see TV in my opinionop I didn't know at turn time I was watching it that there was a second season so it was real edge of your seat stuff.

Season 2 was perfectly fine although not as good I reckon if they had sailed off into Tue sunset with Tue money then it would have gone down as one of the better TV shows.

Season 3 was poor, saved some bit by a couple of interesting characters .

Season 4 wad awful. And I didn't like the ending although

Kellerman's coming back was good

The spinoff mini ending wasn't actually that bad and maybe would have been an OK Season but the ship had well sailed at that point.

I'll give it 10/10 for the unexpected deaths.

rockbeast

Season one probably my favourite first season of any show!

Season two decent enough but once the need to

use the tatoos went and they were well out of prison

the show took a plummet for me.

Season 3/4 - meh!

To this day I've never bother watching the two-part special that takes place before the end of the actual show.

Sad to say:(

tayto lover

It stretched the imagination. Average show but watchable.

rockbeast

tayto lover wrote: »

It stretched the imagination. Average show but watchable.

The end of episode 1 when he reveals his tatoo

which is actually the prison plans is

genuinely one of my favourite TV moments/reveals ever:)

Always thought that Michael should have had memory issues (too memento-ish?) or be less intelligent.

It did seem to stretch it in season 2 especially when

he had tatooed things that he could surely remember...

Must watch first season again soon and just pretend it was left up to the imagination what happened after that.

The higher the concept the higher the fall in serialised TV usually...

eh i dunno

Season 1 -10/10
Season 2 -9/10
Season 3 - 6/10
Season 4 -5/10

Great show and the first two seasons are brilliant. T Bag is the main man in the latter seasons. Great charcacter

horgan_p

It was a great idea for a 1 season show.
Someone smelled money and didn't know where to stop.
Amazing how the smell of money drowns out the storytelling.

rockbeast

horgan_p wrote: »

It was a great idea for a 1 season show.
Someone smelled money and didn't know where to stop.
Amazing how the smell of money drowns out the storytelling.

Not amazing at all

They were going to do a spin-off at one stage - think it was going to be

when Sara was in prison and it would follow her breakout with female inmates :rolleyes:. Wrapped that up in the two-parter I believe instead, thank feck. Maybe not Sara but definitely female orientated anyway...

FearDark

The first season was brilliant. Season two was poor and season three was horrendous...then I gave up.

RFOLEY1990

first season is some of the best television ever made.

rest of it, not so much

Penn

A great show that turned shìte.

IvaBigWun

If I make it to finishing it all again would it be advisable to watch The Final Break before the final episode?

Henwin

season 1 was unbelievable, i dont watch much television but i was counting down the days every wee to watch this. So gripping, then it went downhill, fast, very fast.

The Lost Sheep

Like everyone else here a show that started superbly but fell off the clip very quickly and was very poor for rest of show

Series one was a lot of fun and two wasn't half bad but there came a point near the end of series two, start of three where I just lost interest and never bothered going back. As a self contained single series show it could have been spectacular but the Network got greedy and decided that the show must go one so it all became a little too predictable and familiar. Similar thing happened with Homeland, Hostage and a hundred others that would have worked far better had they told their story and then just ended.

JP Liz V1

Great show based on Season 1 only

IvaBigWun

Realistically speaking the ABCs, NBCs Fox TVs etc of the world dont just want one successful season of a show. If they smell money they milk the cow. Its just how it works.

As an aside, Im surprised the show's creator Paul Scheuring never went onto anything else as noteworthy since.

CountyHurler

I really liked it at the start.... They would end the show every week with one of them in some seemingly impossible situation, only to miraculously find a way out at the beginning of the next week's episode... But these soon grew more monotonous and less believable. ...

IvaBigWun

IvaBigWun wrote: »

If I make it to finishing it all again would it be advisable to watch The Final Break before the final episode?

Anyone?

syklops

This could be a thread about Lost.

D3sperado

IvaBigWun wrote: »

Anyone?

You should watch the Final Break last.

Penn

IvaBigWun wrote: »

Anyone?

The Final Break is last, after the fourth season.

IvaBigWun

D3sperado wrote: »

You should watch the Final Break last.

Even though it is set before the last episode of Season 4?

FortuneChip

IvaBigWun wrote: »

If I make it to finishing it all again would it be advisable to watch The Final Break before the final episode?

I honestly wouldn't watch it at all!
It doesn't add anything to show at all.

Season 1 was excellent, and I would have been happy if Season 2 was conclusive.

Season 3 was a blatant attempt to extend the show and I suppose you can't blame them for that, but it was a very poor season.

But Season 4, wow that was disgraceful! Every cliche under the sun (

the return of the mother, bringing Mahone's trust into it AGAIN

.
It was a completely different show that just shoe-horned in the characters from earlier seasons. Terrible!

IvaBigWun

D3sperado wrote: »

You should watch the Final Break last.

FortuneChip wrote: »

I honestly wouldn't watch it at all!
It doesn't add anything to show at all.

So its non canon?

IP freely

I couldn't really get into it to be perfectly honest, I wasn't to but I couldn't.

I guess that puts me somewhere in the middle ground.

IPF

kev250

I enjoy shows involving prison's so for me it was great, in the top 5 series i have watched. Was considering watching it again as i am struggling to find a good show at the moment.

expectationlost

1st season

Axwell

What many people seem to forget is that this and other shows were pretty much ruined by the writers guild strike. Its evident from peoples posts where they say Season 1 and Season 2 were great and then Season 3 was poor.

Season 3 ended up only being 13 episodes as a result of the writers guild strike. They would have had a full storyline which would run over 22 episodes but instead had to come up with something that would run over 13. While its possible the story for Season 3 was dragging it out a bit I am in no doubt that had it got the full season as originally planned it would have been a far stronger season. So many shows at the same time took a hit over the strike, Heroes being the major one at the time. In most cases by the time they came back to do a full season for the one to follow the damage was already done in the ratings and the shows never recovered.

iamanengine

Damn writers! :P

That said though I still think going back into a new prison to escape all over again was just a little bit too much, I can't even remember what season 4 was about to be honest. Season 1 and 2 were great though, in my mind I prefer to just assume that it ends after season 2 with everyone living happily ever after

Guffy

Axwell wrote: »

What many people seem to forget is that this and other shows were pretty much ruined by the writers guild strike. Its evident from peoples posts where they say Season 1 and Season 2 were great and then Season 3 was poor.

Season 3 ended up only being 13 episodes as a result of the writers guild strike. They would have had a full storyline which would run over 22 episodes but instead had to come up with something that would run over 13. While its possible the story for Season 3 was dragging it out a bit I am in no doubt that had it got the full season as originally planned it would have been a far stronger season. So many shows at the same time took a hit over the strike, Heroes being the major one at the time. In most cases by the time they came back to do a full season for the one to follow the damage was already done in the ratings and the shows never recovered.

Got there before me, we were actually talking about this in pub the last night. Everything just took a nose dive after the writers strike ended but prison break seemed to take the worst hit of all.

FortuneChip

IvaBigWun wrote: »

So its non canon?

Without giving much away, it filled in a gap that never existed in the original four seasons. If it was never made you'd still feel you got to watch the entire story of the main characters.
In computer games, it would be a side mission. The background/lore is all there, it's set in the same world, but you can just skip it and get right to the main plot-line.

D3sperado

FortuneChip wrote: »

Without giving much away, it filled in a gap that never existed in the original four seasons. If it was never made you'd still feel you got to watch the entire story of the main characters.
In computer games, it would be a side mission. The background/lore is all there, it's set in the same world, but you can just skip it and get right to the main plot-line.

To be fair its a bit more significant than a side mission in a game or a spin off. Its not like its a spin off looking at some supporting character and hasn't really got anything to do with the main story.

It explains some really significant things that happen to the main cast in the very last episode of season 4. So while it doesn't really change the end result, it answers a lot of the questions that people would have had if it didn't exist.

TBH, if you manage to struggle through season 3 and season 4 I'd definitely watch it as its only another couple of hours.

endacl

A great premise, utterly bollixed up in the execution.

Sons of Anarchy too...

IvaBigWun

D3sperado wrote: »

To be fair its a bit more significant than a side mission in a game or a spin off. Its not like its a spin off looking at some supporting character and hasn't really got anything to do with the main story.

It explains some really significant things that happen to the main cast in the very last episode of season 4. So while it doesn't really change the end result, it answers a lot of the questions that people would have had if it didn't exist.

TBH, if you manage to struggle through season 3 and season 4 I'd definitely watch it as its only another couple of hours.

Would you watch it before the last episode of Season 4 or after?

Chronologically The Final Break happens before the final episode.

ziedth

IvaBigWun wrote: »

Would you watch it before the last episode of Season 4 or after?

Chronologically The Final Break happens before the final episode.

Without a doubt after.

IvaBigWun

These last few episodes are a struggle to get through, the dialogue is woeful.

"Your mother actually worked for us Michael. And (dramatic pause), she's still alive!"

Din! Din! Dinnnn!

IvaBigWun

Finally finished it. A show the got so bad it inspired a thread

Thargor

IvaBigWun wrote: »

These last few episodes are a struggle to get through, the dialogue is woeful.

"Your mother actually worked for us Michael. And (dramatic pause), she's still alive!"

Din! Din! Dinnnn!

Wasnt part of his plan that he had to retrieve something from his mothers house or her files or something like that and he had a relevant tattoo of the word "MOTHER" on his shoulder for it to help him remember :P

Season 1 was a great show with T-Bone and all the rest and a few eps in the Colombian prison or wherever it was were entertaining enough. but there was way too much stupid mush surrounding it.

Stone Deaf 4evr

Thargor wrote: »

Wasnt part of his plan that he had to retrieve something from his mothers house or her files or something like that and he had a relevant tattoo of the word "MOTHER" on his shoulder for it to help him remember :P

Season 1 was a great show with T-Bone and all the rest and a few eps in the Colombian prison or wherever it was were entertaining enough. but there was way too much stupid mush surrounding it.

Am I the only one who enjoyed the south amercan prison series? I thought that it was actually better than the first, as they had to devise a way out, without having everything sussed out. the lamest moment IMO was the tattoo of christ in a rose.

the name of the boat they were planning on using to escape was called the christina rose

oh, and full body tattoo removal in one sitting with no painkillers. :rolleyes:

brianregan09

I hated how they killed off most of the interesting prison characters in the first 3 or 4 episodes of season 2

IvaBigWun

brianregan09 wrote: »

I hated how they killed off most of the interesting prison characters in the first 3 or 4 episodes of season 2

Why did they kill off

John Abruzzi

? Was

Peter Stormare

signed up for something else?

It made no sense

Turtwig

He was in trouble with the law irrc.

IvaBigWun

Turtwig wrote: »

He was in trouble with the law irrc.

The actor

Peter Stormare

?

Turtwig

Dunno, it's so long ago. I just remember one potential main character had to be killed off because of their real life issues. I think it was him, but not in any way certain.

Edit: according to Google it was

Tweener