Hit noughties crime dramaPrison Breakhas experienced a revival in fortunes since its most recent outing on Netflix. The show has developed a cult following among a new generation of viewers, and has rocketed up the streaming charts as a result. Now, with its new audience hooked on the story of convicts Michael Scofield and Lincoln Burrows,Hulu has commissioned a reboot ofPrison Break, which is currently in the works.
If this reboot does end up being produced, it will add to the88 episodes and one feature-length movie that the series has already racked up.Prison Break’s episodes span five seasons, including a fifth-season revival in 2017. The show’s seasons typically encompass 22 episodes, as the seasons of most serial dramas in the early 2000s did. However, season 3 runs much shorter at just 13 episodes, while season 5 has only nine. There’s a consensus that neither season features many ofPrison Break’s best episodes, and they’re generally considered the two weakest chapters in the story.
Prison Break Season 3 Was Shorter Due To The 2007-08 Writers’ Strike
The Strike Coincided With Production Of The Season’s Second Half
The third season ofPrison Break, in particular, compares unfavourably alongside seasons 1, 2 and 4, since it’s one of the four parts of the show’s original run on network television, between 2005 and 2009. Theshow was changed dramatically by the writers’ strikewhich fell right in the middle of its season 3 production run, during which all members of the Writers Guild of America (WGA) struck for more than three months between November 2007 and February 2008.
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Prison Break was a remarkable show with a clever and engaging premise and compelling lead characters, however, as the show went on, it lost its way.
Producers had planned for the season to run for 22 episodes, as previous seasons had done, but the strike made this plan practically impossible. An entire narrative arc had to be scrapped, with the story curtailed and then stretched out across season 4, which sawPrison Breakcanceleduntil its revival almost a decade later. One of the longest strikes in the WGA’s history happened to coincide with a crucial moment in the development ofPrison Break’s story, fundamentally altering the show’s course.
How Prison Break Season 3’s Shorter Episode Count Affected The Show
Storylines Were Radically Altered And Even Scrapped
Season 3 of the series focuses primarily on Scofield’s incarceration in and escape from the Penitenciaría Federal de Sona in Panama.Many viewers feel that the story retreads old ground from the first season, although its climactic escape unfolds in a very different way.
Nevertheless, it was supposed to be only partially about this escape, and was originally intended to revolve around the death of Scofield’s love interest Sara Tancredi, played by Sarah Wayne Callies. Instead, afterCallies had skipped season 3 ofPrison Break, her character returned at the start of season 4. The handling of Tancredi’s apparent murder had been rushed, and the plan to have Scofield avenge her had to be shelved during the strike.
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What’s more,the third season was supposed to lay the groundwork for a spin-off seriesentitledPrison Break: Cherry Hill, by introducing some of its characters. Given that these characters were originally proposed to play a role in the second half of season 13, the shortening of this season led to the whole idea being scrapped. Season 4 continued where season 3 had effectively been cut off, except with the showrunners having “really wiped the slate clean”, according to executive producer Matt Olmstead (viaLos Angeles Times). That meant Sara Tancredi’s head was uncut off, and the show’s direction shifted again.
Why Prison Break Season 5 Was Also Shorter Than Most Of The Seasons
The Revival Was Made For The Streaming Age
Several years later, the show was back by popular demand, asFox revived Scofield (in more ways than one), Burrows and Tancrediwith a nine-episode season for the streaming age. Actors Wentworth Miller and Dominic Purcell, who play Scofield and Burrows respectively, were the ones behind the idea of a revival. Fox jumped at the idea off the back of the show’s decent syndication numbers on streaming platforms, and commissioned a 10-episode limited series. The final result, coming in one episode short of Fox’s target, demonstrated that the idea behindPrison Breakseason 5 had been a big mistake.
Prison Break Reboot Can Finally Make Up For Season 5’s Biggest Mistake Even If It’s Not About Michael And Lincoln
Prison Break began as one of the most compelling TV shows of all time, but it started to fail when it ignored its key characters, like Mahone.
Bringing back the same old characters in a revival was never going to work for this show, particularly given how the story had ended in season 4 and the TV moviePrison Break: The Final Break. The length of the revival season made sense, since shows numbering between six and 10 episodes are commonplace on streaming platforms. The age of the 22-episode season is now long gone.Prison Break’s original characters should have been long gone, too, and it’s telling that the upcoming series reboot won’t bring them back again.
