It's no secret that for the American televisual landscape last year was a mess. The writers strike dealt many blows to brand new shows trying to establish themselves. Hard to find an audience when scripts are dwindling and the cutting of corners is very much required. That being said there might have been an upside to the short and bittersweet morsels we got.
In the case of properties like Prison Break or Lost we got truncation. Blissful in someways, maddening in others it transformed Lost from the most padded of series into a lean, tense thriller. The mind bending minus the minutiae. Prison Break suffered from a stop- start run which greatly affected the momentum. And aside from 24 no other show needs its pace so much. It's in this non stop style of storytelling that lets Prison Break (Ironically) get away with so much. It was always a story one had to take with a pinch of salt. There were huge conveniences, coincidences and contrivances to the tale but at its heart it was a thriller, slick if shallow. We overlooked these gaping holes in logic cause the characters could squeeze out of prison through them and it was all for the sugar rush. The first season for all its reality baiting silliness was well thought through, a plan that had a set number of parts and seeing them all click into place was hugely satisfying, week in and week out.
The second year then had to be made if only to deal with the repercussions and well without the Prison setting the show seemed more like a drawn out ending rather than a brave new direction. Despite this it remained huge fun skulking through various middle American towns with the former Fox River inmates.
The Government conspiracy that stalked the mythology of the show became harder to ignore as they used their nefarious board meetings to trap our heroes (and anti heroes, and em...antagonists) in the bleached out Hell of a Panamanian Prison named Sona. This initially seemed like a dark new direction for the show and despite the oppressive heat and grimy locale the show still did its thing as per usual. Michael remained a Superhero, Lincoln the slow witted muscle, Mahone the nervy ambiguous one and T Bag, the cunning and strangely charming face of evil.
The spluttering tone made the relatively short stay seem more akin to Life and so the 4th series had to do something to hook people back in, those who broke out of their viewing habits a short while into the Sona sojourn.
Whoever came up with the idea of making it the brand new A-Team deserves to be knocked back to Z-status as the show has laughingly become a spy/computer drama. Lazy writing (with one piece of throwaway dialogue, the Sona prison is done away with, cliffhangers resolved and characters regrouped) a flimsy central theme and acting that seems to be a con (yet not the "con" that would be appropriate) the current season has shown conclusively what happens when a finite idea goes on far too long.
The introduction of the "new blood" of Michael Rapaport wouldn't interest a weakened Bela Lugosi and seems like a desperate attempt to freshen things up. It might have worked if Rapaport had provided a brand new performance for the role but this is the same mixture of dumb/smartass he's been peddling for years. None of the characters are showing any new colours either, with lead Wentworth Miller almost visibly tired of the role and the return of Sarah Wayne Callies (though lovely she is) being the shark leap that broke the sharks fin and acts now as a constant reminder of the schlock you're watching.
I would have been a lenient judge in the past but I don't think any of these characters or this show itself now deserve their day in court.
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