This show has been on the top of my list to review since the beginning, so I couldn't wait to get to it when the opportunity presented itself.



Having broken out of prison, a handful of convicts try their best to elude the law while cleaning up the unfinished business they had in their lives before going to jail. Each con has their own agenda: one wants to protect his son, another wants to reconnect with his fiancie, another is just out for the money since stealing it from the group, etc.



PRISON BREAK has a little something for everyone. This particular episode, "Bolshoi Booze," was very action-packed giving us a White House conspiracy, secret files, secret rendez vous, betrayal, torture, drugs, prostitutes and, my favourite, a gun fight turned fist fight turned knife fight! There was even a very clever DaVinci Code moment with the title of the secret location.



For the most part, the characters are likeable and complex, the highlight being Theodore "Teabag" Bagwell, the real badboy of the group, currently in desperate need of a hand. Literally. You might also recognize Agent Alex Mahone from Invasion - last year's Best New Show turned Best New Cancelled Show - played by William Fichtner who always does a killer bad guy. Again, literally.

In a classic case of role reversal, it's the "good guys" that commit most of the crimes - murder, torture, backstabbing - for the sake of national security and catching the crooks, while the baddies save the damsels, protect the innocent and even help other baddies who only moments ago were going to kill them. Guess there really is honour among thieves.



PRISON BREAK is a show that chooses style over substance. With Brett Ratner (X-men 3) and Neal H. Moritz (The Fast and the Furious flicks) exec producing, it couldn't feel truer. Cool slow motion death scenes, cool slow motion walking through deserts, and raspy-voiced thugs exchanging raspy-voiced words all contribute to a show where what happens is more important than why it is happening.

What I wouldnt mind seeing more is the struggle between doing the right thing and committing another crime. Are these cons chained to their ways or can they break the shackles of their past and preserve their humanity? We saw a little of that this episode when main character Michael Scofield visits a confessional after stealing from an old man in broad daylight. Then again, I think he was just confessing to being a pretty lousy thief.



Ultimately, PB is about loyalty, sacrifice and redemption and asks us to judge a man by his present deeds than by the sins of his past. And if that man must walk through the desert in slow motion to a destination written on his arm in a cryptic DaVinci Code tattoo to exchange drugs for an airplane rendez vous point to do that ... so be it. How can you not root for the guy?

The TV Guyde