Prison Break and Wentwotth Earl Miller

The amoral premise of the Fox series Prison Break would have you root for murders, rapists and thieves to escape their incarceration. Predictably, a nihilistic cloak descends over events at Fox River State Penitentiary as inmates spend a season's worth of episodes planning their escape. On the heels of serialized prime-time television successes like 24 or Lost (and failures such as Surface and Invasion), Prison Break presents a complicated, lengthy story arc that will leave non-consistent viewers more than a little flummoxed. Absurdly implausible though it may be, the reward for keeping up with this show obsessively is a well-crafted production, with clever plot twists that more often than not succeeds as a taut thriller.

As the series opens, Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller) gets the finishing touches of a tattoo applied to his upper torso and both arms. Then he robs a bank. But things don't add up as he surrenders too easier, and shows utter disinterest in saving his own skin at his arraignment. Attorney and family friend Veronica Donovan (Robin Tunney) can't figure out why he's essentially giving up. He more or less requests to be incarcerated at Fox River State Penitentiary and the judge obliges him with a five year sentence. Once he's enrolled at the Joliet, Illinois penal facility, he scouts out Lincoln Burrows (Dominic Purcell) who has been convicted of murdering the Vice President抯 brother. That's right -- the Vice President of the United States. It turn's out Lincoln is Michael's brother. Things begin to add up.

You see, Michael has launched an audacious plan to spring his brother out of prison. Having exhausted every effort of the legal system to free his wrongly convicted brother, Michael has planned a highly detailed prison break scenario. How could he know so much about the inner workings of the prison? you may ask yourself. It seems Michael is a structural engineer whose firm was contracted to retrofit this very prison a few years back He's borrowed the blueprints of the facilities and hidden the details in his intricate tattoo. Trust me, it's the first of many suspensions of belief you will need to endure throughout the series to swallow the far-fetched goings-on you will encounter. If you can handle that, you'll have no problem with him cutting out pills secreted in his body, having regular insulin shots (though he's not diabetic) and building unlikely alliances among the prison population. These include Michael's cellmate Fernando Sucre (Amaury Nolasco), mobster John Abruzzi (Peter Stormare) who's in charge of work detail, C-Note (Rockmond Dunbar) who's first mission is to obtain medication that counteracts Michael's insulin intact, and rapist and child murderer -- not to mention violent homosexual -- Theodore "T-Bag" Bagwell (Robert Knepper). Also in the mix is Charles Westmorland (Muse Watson) who, rumor has it, is the infamous D.B. Cooper, 1971 airliner hijacker who parachuting out over the Pacific Northwest with a load of cash. Ex-psychiatric ward resident Charles "Haywire" Patoshik (Silas Weir Mitchell) becomes Michael's cellmate later on in the season, and David "Tweener" Apolskis (Lane Garrison) schemes his way into the plan as well.

Overseeing the correctional institution is Warden Henry Pope (Stacy Keach). He may run the place by day, but crooked Captain Brad Bellick (Wade Williams), as he will tell you, runs it by night. Outside the prison walls, Veronica dives right into a vast conspiracy, with tentacles reaching up to the highest levels of power in the federal government. Not only did Lincoln not commit the murder he was sent to the slammer for, by his "victim" may very well still be alive. Hopefully by now you have disengaged your brain, content to wallow in the intrigue without trying to have it make sense.

The show is executive produced by Brett Ratner ("X-Men: The Last Stand"), who also directed the pilot episode, and created by writer Paul T. Scheuring. They have indicated that the entire story will be told in a two-season arc, though ratings will no doubt have an effect on that decision. A standout episode, 揃rother抯 Keeper,?unfolds in compelling flashback the background on the characters, detailing exactly how they ended up in jail. It's a welcome departure from the typical episodes (which tend to be repetitive in structure), and really helps to flesh out the supporting characters. Cliffhanger endings to each episode (and nearly to every commercial break) are well executed.

All the upcoming prime-time serials set to debut in the fall (including Vanished, The Nine, and Kidnapped) would seem to indicate a peak in popularity for this method of storytelling. Preposterous situations aside, Prison Break provides the addictive suspense expected of it, though not without its faults. In particular, it's very cynical of religion, holding particular disdain for Catholicism. For example, Abruzzi is threatened by one of his mob associates: "Our wives are friends; our kids go to the same Catholic school. It would be a shame if anything were to happen to your kids." Additionally, Sucre and his girlfriend make plans -- during conjugal visits -- to get married in a Catholic church. Oh yeah, and it's implied that a bishop is circumventing tax law, but he's bumped off early on, so we don't get the details. What's your impression of Catholics now? Religious symbols (and people) are only used as props or plot devices -- that's all. Once again, a character solves their problems through suicide. A nice twist against type has the warden as a good guy. The season ends with a mother of all cliffhangers, as a handful of escapees literally run for their lives.

The twenty-two episodes are divided onto six discs. The discs are housed in three thin, clear keepcases, each of which holds a pair of discs. The front of each case features the same close-up photo of Michael on their top halves. Smaller color photos of Michael, Lincoln, and Sucre are featured on the bottoms of cases one, two, and three, respectively. The back of each case features a listing of episode titles, airdates, and brief synopses. The cases slide into a cardboard outer sleeve.