PRISON BREAK

Wentworth Miller sounds like a baddy from a Henry James novel but actually he is an actor in craptastic new C5 series Prison Break. Wentworth is supposed to be a structural engineer even though he looks more like a barely legal Gap model. The Gap model-ness carries through to his acting too as most situations are met with a Zoolander style Blue Steel pout/glare. Wentworth deliberately gets himself sent to the prison that he helped build to rescue his brother (who looks like a gay porn version of a rugby player), who is on death row for a CRIME HE DIDN’T COMMIT!! To help them escape, Wentworth has had the entire prison blueprints tattooed on his body (using a magical tattoo method that didn’t even make him bleed). His plan involves sucking up to the prison doctor, making an Allen Key out of some carefully selected bit of metal and helping the prison governor make a scale model of the Taj Mahal out of matchsticks. Okayyy.

Wentworth has a cunning plan but has seemingly forgotten to factor in the presence of other prisoners who might actually stop him from doing whatever he wants. So actually it is a very stupid plan, n’est pas? Unlike Oz, the programme is unable/unwilling to show you what you really want to see in a prison drama (ie full frontal nudity, shower scenes, rough prison sex etc) and so prison life comes across as irritating and dull rather than actually dangerous and scary. So far there has been a very lame riot, a bit of mild sexual harassment and a brief moment of stabbery. Boring!!!

Gay rugby brother is in prison because of a conspiracy that I don’t really understand (because I find myself reading whenever PB is on, not because I’m thick or anything). You can tell there is a conspiracy because all the baddies wear matching ugly chunky signet rings and phone each other up to tell each other to “take care of that meddling priest” etc (cue priest being killed to death). Gay rugby brother’s drippy lawyer/girlfriend (Robin Tunney, who always looks like she is on the verge of tears) is investigating and is probably going to be targeted next. Perhaps she looks sad because she knows she is going to be written out soon, or else the scripts are so bad that they make her cry real tears of pain.

You can see what the program is trying to do (be “24-for-morons” meets “Oz-for-morons”) but it is all so shoddy and badly written and acted that it completely lacks the thrills and excitement of its main influences. Also the whole premise seems to be slightly problematic – either they break out of prison (in which case the program is over) or else they don’t (and the whole point of the program peters out.) Perhaps they will escape from this prison and then be sent to another one to break out of next series?? Either way it is unlikely that I will still be watching.