TV Watch: Prison Break

Sometimes healthy doses of gratuitousness and absurdity can produce a show that is gratuitous and absurd. And sometimes they can produce a show that is simply addictive and highly viewable, somehow rising above its own ridiculousness.

“Prison Break” fits the latter bill.

In the past two episodes alone, Fox River Penitentiary inmates and Fox Network viewers have seen a tabby cat executed, a molested teenager hang himself, Secret Service operatives gun down a pair of suburban step-parents, a guard hump a secretary in the break room (to table-shaking effect), and a mobster get stabbed in the eye with a shattered light bulb.

On Monday night, in a particularly laughable scene, we found out from his psychiatrist that the show’s hero Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller) is, through a jumble of expert technical terms, very smart and empathetic. Scofield, you see, intentionally landed himself in the big house in order to hatch an intricate plan to spring his wrongfully-convicted brother before said brother’s scheduled execution. You’re a genius, doc!

But then, in the midst of all the unintentional comedy and over-acting, come the payoffs.

Consider the following: a sequence at the end of the latest episode, in which Scofield’s nephew is being tracked and bugged by the bad-guy feds via his cell phone. The viewer curses (aloud) his stupidity and that of the lawyer—also on the lam—he calls for advice, as they reveal their locations and play right into the baddies’ hands. But then, after the agents board a bus to find an abandoned cell phone, and the nephew gets off a different bus in safety, we are shown the text message he received from the lawyer right after hanging up, telling him to ditch the phone and divulging her real whereabouts. Awesome.

And then, if you look hard enough, comes the social insight. The viewer is comfortable rooting for, among others, a convicted car thief and a deposed don against corrupt law enforcement and an oil-greed government conspiracy. Dostoyevsky this ain’t, but it’s more thought-provoking than the average Fox drivel.

So, if next week a prisoner is made to eat his own hair or the vice-president tries to have the prison burned down, don’t be surprised. But don’t feel guilty enjoying it either!

No, seriously, don’t feel guilty.