I really didn’t want to watch PRISON BREAK when I first heard about it. After, the whole premise is a bit silly, and even the cast members and producers sometimes snicker about aspects of it. A guy tattoos the blueprints of a prison onto his body in order to break his brother out after he gets himself thrown in for committing a felony? It just seemed too farfetched and absurd. What changed my mind? Two things. First, a number of fans and critics who stated that they, too, found the premise absurd. Secondly, person after person and critic after critic stated that it was one of the most entertaining shows on TV. Besides, my all time favorite TV show is about a sixteen year old California cheerleader who discovers that she has been called to be her generation’s vampire slayer. I figured that if a show as great as BUFFY could start off with a silly premise and end up with something that was truly great, so could PRISON BREAK.

Speaking of BUFFY and PRISON BREAK, the two shows had many overlaps. The person who green lighted PRISON BREAK was Gail Berman, the person who first had the idea of turning BUFFY into a TV series. One of the executive producers for the new show was Marti Noxon, who wrote for BUFFY and was the show runner in its last two seasons. The show’s star, Wentworth Miller, was the main guest star in a late Season Two episode of BUFFY (albeit one of the few weak episodes in a string of episodes that are largely masterpieces) entitled “Go Fish,” playing the star of the swim team. Wade Williams, who plays Bellick, had a small but memorable role as the general of a Knights Templar-like group of knights.

The two immediate influences on PRISON BREAK are 24 and LOST, especially the former. Like 24, the show strives to keep the viewer on the edge of his or her seat and end each episode with a cliffhanging ending. Like 24 and LOST, the show is concerned to tell an ongoing story with no one episode especially self-contained. Like LOST, there often turn out to be more interrelations between the characters than one might initially suppose and like LOST often tries to plumb the causes of present events by flashing back to the past.

But any show could emulate 24 and LOST. The challenge is to do it well. The only eal negative about this show is the initial premise. Luckily this is an extremely well written show. The writers have a genius for creating one dilemma after another that seems to have no resolution, only to have our hero miraculously extricate himself and his plans each week. It is a wonderful experiment in grand storytelling, with heartbreaks, surprises, and so much excitement that sometimes it gets a little too exciting. I promise that from first to last this show will present you with a string of adrenaline rushes.

Apart from the writing, the other thing that really makes this show work is the cast, which brings together as many first rate character actors as any show on TV. Wentworth Miller is absolutely outstanding as Michael Scofield, an absolutely brilliant structural engineer who is intent on helping his brother escape from prison. Dominic Purcell does a wonderful job in the difficult role of Michael’s brother Lincoln Burrows, who is awaiting execution for the murder of the vice president’s brother, but who was framed in a elaborate conspiracy. Much of the rest of the cast is filled with scene-stealers of the first rank. Veteran actor Peter Stomare (perhaps best known for stuffing Steve Buscemi’s leg down a wood chipper in FARGO) is wonderfully threatening and insane as mobster John Abruzzi. Even more memorable is Robert Knepper, who plays animalistic pansexual molester and murderer Theodore “T-Bag” Bagwell. The aforementioned Wade Williams is marvelous as the crooked and brutal guard Bellick, while Stacy Keach is the admirable and highly principled warden Henry Pope. The show’s main romantic interest revolves around the flirtation and chemistry between Scofield and the prison doctor Sara Tancredi, played by the red-haired Sarah Wayne Callies. There are many other marvelous performers, though in particular I would like to mention Silas Weir Mitchell, who played the utterly psychotic Haywire. I’m not sure that any actor today plays a more convincing insane person than Mitchell.

I personally believe that in the past ten years TV has become for the most part a higher form of entertainment than the movies. Certainly there are far more hours of high quality TV produced than high quality film. PRISON BREAK is further evidence of this. There has been on and off debate about when the Golden Age of television was, but personally I think it started in the 1990s and continues to today, with shows like THE X-FILES, BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, THE SOPRANOS, SIX FEET UNDER, FARSCAPE, THE WEST WING, THE GILMORE GIRLS, 24, ANGEL, ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT, SCRUBS, DEAD LIKE ME, THE SHIELD, BATTLESTAR GALATICA, LOST, and VERONICA MARS. The only problem today is finding time to watch all of the truly worth TV series. I certainly would encourage anyone interested in quality entertainment trying to find time for this enormously entertaining show.