That’s right, Fox. Beat that dead horse. The third season of Prison Break may as well have ended with 24′s Jack Bauer diving in front of a nuclear missile and saving the world from being blown to bits. That’s about how realistic this show has become. For those unfamiliar with Prison Break, it did really well for itself during its first few batches of episodes. It was even nominated for an Emmy in 2006. But here in 2008, our inmates have broken out of two prisons, one of which is located in Chicago, and the other in Panama City. Try to get past any attempts to figure out how an ensemble cast gets into just the right amount of trouble in exactly the same place as one another. Without watching every episode from beginning to end, it won’t make sense. In fact, I’ve seen every episode, and I don’t fucking understand it. It’s some kind of TV show phenomenon. The bad kind, too.

Season 4 carries on where the third left off, and follows awful actor Wentworth Miller and equally bad Sarah Wayne Callies as they deal with her recent kidnapping. Everyone is of course very emotional and having to dish out the corniest one liners because the writers are coasting through the episodes. Dialogue has become all but unbearable, but the story behind the character’s words has to be the most abysmal aspect of the show. This shit isn’t even remotely believable or interesting any more. We have on our hands a group of invincible heroes whose task it is to retrieve parts of a secret government “black book”. These characters went from being individuals in the first season, with unique motives and backstories, to being Michael Scofield. Everyone is fucking Michael Scofield, and I don’t mean they’re touching parts or feeling each other up. They’re clones. There’s the asshole ex cop, the Spanish dude who left the only woman who ever loved him (and had his child), the meathead big brother who Hulk-smashes baddies with guns, because he’s impervious to bullets. There’s also the random asian who doesn’t know how he got there. Quite frankly, I have no idea how he got there either. There’s so much potential for personality here, but it’s all wasted on the numbskull notion that if everyone works together and cooperates to fight the biggest government cover-up agency, all will be peachy in the land of sunshine lollipops and rainbow flowers. Who the fuck are these people and what have they done with the well-drawn characters of the first season?

Imagine any one of the Ocean’s movies. Prison Break is nothing like those movies. Sure it has an unnecessarily large cast, just like an Ocean’s flick, but the acting “talent” is virtually talentless. It’s painful to watch Wentworth act out what he thinks angry people are like, and it’s even more painful to watch Sarah’s would-be reactions to being held hostage. She can cry and everything, but none of these actors have any emotional attachments to the characters they’re portraying. This is just work to them, and frankly, they’re terrible at their jobs. The saving grace of Prison Break is without a doubt William Fitchner – a veteran actor who knows his way around a television show character. Still, even Fitchner is starting to fade away into this pointless program.

Always outnumbered and consistently outgunned, the A-Team is breaking into different locations this season, as opposed to the usual prison breakout. That sounds about a thousand times more interesting than it actually is; the group of Danny Oceans isn’t nearly as bad as their opposition. The Company who originally framed Lincoln Burrows and started this whole shindig are still after him, and even though they house some of the world’s best trained agents and assassins, they never catch him, or anyone for that matter. The exception to this is a mysterious company agent who nails James Whistler in the head with a silenced pistol, from over a football field away. So while these people are obviously capable of shooting a watermelon seed from mile off, they’ll never be able to put a bullet in Scofield or Burrows. The Company motto should be “Failure is not an option; it’s the only way.”

Prison Break is a one trick pony making its fourth debut on stage. Maybe this time they’ll try something different! Or maybe they would’ve if they hadn’t already stuck with the same formula of “you’re in trouble and here’s a government agency who will cut you a deal so you can get out Scott free.” The show has become nothing more than a mess of emotions, disconnected characters, nonsensical story-telling, and awful writing. I’ve stuck around through every episode, and I’m not even considering watching any more Prison Break. I sincerely believe this show cannot get any worse than it is now, although I’ve been wrong before…

SMASH CUT TO SARAH’S HEAD IN A FUCKING BOX OMG SHOCK VALUE BUT SHE’S NOT DEAD LOL TRIX

Don’t watch Prison Break – Season 4 here.