Hi, My Name Is...

The most underrated comedy currently in production sneaked back into the schedules recently with little to no fanfare or press.

I’m talking about the wonderful ‘My Name Is Earl’.

His name is Earl and his show is damn funny.

That’s right; Earl Hickey is back and more importantly; back on form.

Let’s be honest, Season 3 wasn’t Earl’s finest hour; too many contrived plot devices and gimmicks (Earl in jail, Earl in a coma) left me wondering whether the writers had run out of ideas.

But for Season 4 Earl is back to doing what he does best; crossing items off his seemingly never-ending list and causing all manner of hijinx.

The unique ‘list’ aspect of the show should, in theory, guard against the need for contrived arcs and storylines, which is what made last season so frustrating. Earl’s list gives the writer’s a free pass to dream up crazy characters and situations and have them fit in perfectly with the show’s tone and pace.

This has already been seen in full effect at the beginning of this season’s run with the guest appearance of Seth Green, who seems to have developed a knack for stealing any scene/show he appears in.

In addition to Green, ‘My Name Is Earl’ has managed to secure a number of impressive guest stars in it’s previous three seasons; Burt Reynolds, Jon Heder, Christian Slater and John Waters have all appeared, along with a host of other ‘famous’ faces.

While this list of guest stars may not be on a par with that of say, ‘Friends’, Earl’s producers seem to plump for guest stars who seem a natural fit for the character they play; Slater as a stoner, Reynolds as a misogynistic nightclub owner, Giovanni Ribisi as a petty criminal - he needs the money people!

It isn’t just the guest stars in ‘My Name Is Earl’ though, that deserve credit for turning in consistently weird and wonderful performances. In addition to the five main characters, who we’ll get to later, ‘My Name Is Earl’ has built up a pretty impressive cast of minor, recurring characters who populate Camden County. I would say that in terms of eccentric townsfolk; The Camdenites are rivalled only by the residents of Springfield in ‘The Simpsons’ (incompetent lawyer Lionel Hutz was always my favourite Simpsons character) lofty praise indeed.

A special mention needs to go out to Tim Stack, also a writer on ‘Earl’, who’s exaggerated version of himself is pure genius.

Usually dressed in his Notch Johnson outfit from his dismal sitcom ‘Son Of The Beach’ Stack pops pills and drinks to excess while using his ‘celebrity’ to try and get his own way with Camden’s colourful residents. His dressing as a baby for his ‘date’ with Joy was definitely one of the highlights of the show so far. Other stand-out supporting characters include Patty the daytime hooker and Willie the one-eyed mail man, played by Ethan Suplee’s real-life dad Bill.

As for the main cast; Jason Lee has never been better than as the titular Earl. Jaime Pressly effortlessly manages to maker trailer trash sexy as the hot-headed Joy, bogarting most of the best lines in the process.

Eddie Steeples as laid-back, ‘crabman’ Darnell gives a brilliantly deadpan performance as Joy’s witness-protected husband.

And of course, Ethan Suplee always brings the laughs as Earl’s dim-witted but often profound brother Randy.

I remember Suplee from his early work on ‘Boy Meets World’ and he didn’t seem to age for about ten years as he appeared in other shows/films. It seems strange now seeing him as an ‘adult’, well, I say adult, Randy’s more of a man-child, but Suplee plays him to perfection; that scene in last week’s episode where he was nonchalantly eating cat food was gold.

The only gripe I have with the main cast is Nadine Velasquez’s role as stripper/maid Catalina.

Velasquez has proved that was well as being smoking hot she has impeccable comic timing and more than often does get some great lines.

Recently though, Catalina seems like an afterthought and the ways that she is crowbarred into episodes now seems to be getting more and more tenuous. She could easily be dropped from the show and not be missed and that’s disappointing.

The unrequited love storyline with Randy was actually quite an interesting subplot, but it seemed to be ended quite abruptly, dropped completely and then never mentioned again and now Catalina seems to just be ‘there’ with no real purpose, but that’s only a minor complaint. Overall the writing, casting and performances within this brilliant series are top notch.

‘My Name Is Earl’s crowning glory though is it’s great use of music. Week in and week out I’m continually amazed by the array of classic songs used on the show (usually from the hair metal or country genre.)

To feature so much licensed music must cost the show quite a few pesos but it’s more than worth it, anyone who saw Earl trying to psyche his Dad up for a fight by singing Survivor’s ‘Eye Of The Tiger’ will know what I mean, as will those of you who’ve seen Catalina’s strip club routine to House of Pain’s ‘Jump Around’.

I can’t think of any other show that uses such a vast array of popular music to such great effect other than ‘Earl’.

As this fourth season has already aired in the States, I’ve got a good idea of what’s on the horizon for Earl and the gang in the coming weeks; including an Erik Estrada guest appearance towards the end of the season. Fucking Ponch!

So if you don’t already know his name, tune in Thursdays at 9pm on E4 and let Earl introduce himself to you…

Other Televisual Musings This Week;

- Pure, unadulterated TV heaven for me at the moment continues to be the California advert that’s been running for a while now. Schwarzenegger’s delivery of his only line; “when can you start?” has me in stitches every time, it’s the most robotic performance of his career …and he played a cyborg in three of his films.

- ‘Lost’s return didn’t disappoint, but as anyone who’s seen the show before could probably have guessed; more questions than answers.

But let’s not take anything away from the two-hour season premiere, it still had some great moments; Sayid still managing to take out one of his and Hurley’s assailants after being shot with several tranquilizer darts, Hurley’s ‘I love my Shih Tzu’ t-shirt and the delicious irony of Michelle Rodriguez’s Ana-Lucia coming back in vision form to critique Hurley’s driving skills.

It was also nice to finally see an episode of ‘Making the Video’ with Dr. Pierre Chang or Marvin Candle as he referred to himself this time, his creepy orientation videos have been a delight throughout the past few seasons so to finally see him ‘behind the scenes’, so to speak, was a nice touch.

- Over on ‘24’ Jack buried someone alive, to keep them alive and nearly killed the former Sangalan Prime Minister and his wife with a gas he made from cleaning products he found under the sink - I think it’s pretty safe to say he’s past his little voyage of self-discovery now.

- Mickey Rourke appeared on ‘Larry King Live’ earlier in the week and was kayfabe joined by Chris Jericho via satellite to plug their potential ‘Wrestlemania’ battle.

But less than 24 hours later, Rourke’s people are now denying he’ll be stepping into the ring again. As I alluded to in a story on TV or not TV’s sister website The Minty Pocket; right or wrong, Rourke’s OSCAR chances would diminish considerably through any association with WWE. So they’re probably doing the smart thing distancing themselves from the WWE at the moment, but the cynic in me says this will all be back on again once the OSCAR votes are in.

- Lastly, I will never tire of watching Saturday night’s lottery show ‘In It To Win It’ no matter how irritating the contestants get and how blatantly obvious they make it that they’ve been told to string out their answers for dramatic effect; “Well Dale, my name’s not Barry, and it’s not Paul so in answer to the question ‘what is your name?’ I’m going to say B. Dick.

But in spite of all this show’s many, many flaws, the mere sight of Dale Winton inviting contestants into his “red area” just never gets old and continues to make my Saturday night week after week…

Lost?

TV’s heavy hitters are returning to our screens quicker than Kelly Brook can lose a job. First the octane-fuelled ‘24’ returned to light up Monday nights, and now the enigma wrapped inside a riddle punctuated by a giant question mark that is ‘Lost’ returns to Sky1 to make Sundays bearable.

When we last visited The Island, beady-eyed master-manipulator Ben had turned some giant rotting cog in an ice cave somewhere below ground and caused the whole island to disappear. Oh, and Locke was in a coffin… Lost? Me to…

Every season of ‘Lost’ seems to answer the plethora of questions it leaves it’s audience asking with more questions. But now that producers have announced the show’s end, critics and fans seem to be a lot more comfortable with the show’s direction.

After that killer first season, ratings took a nose dive, much like Flight 815 itself, and accusations were levelled at JJ Abrams et al that they were making it up as they went along. The addition of uninspiring new characters such as the tail section survivors didn’t help matters, but since the announcement of it’s impending climax, ‘Lost’ doesn’t seem so lost anymore.

Sharper writing and renewed focus made the fourth season, in spite of the writer’s strike that crippled so many shows last year, feel like it was finally working towards answering the myriad questions that Lost poses.

Seasons five and six have a lot to live up to, now the end is in sight people’s expectations for how it all ends have skyrocketed and I just hope that Abrams and messrs Cuse and Lindelof can do this brilliant show they have created and nursed into it’s formative years justice and end on a high note.

So here’s hoping for more Sawyer and less Jack, more Desmond and less Kate and hopefully some fucking answers!

Lost Season 5 airs Sundays on Sky1 at 9pm

A TV event that was about as welcome as a rabid Rottweiler in a children’s hospital was the return of ‘Skins’ this week on E4. Now, maybe I’m getting old but I just don’t get it. I just think it’s a giant pile of steaming horseshit, yet all I ever hear in the media is how great this show is. Is it me?

I’m starting to think that maybe it is; I sat and watched the final of ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ last night and remained convinced that the British public wouldn’t do the unthinkable and keep Ulrika Jonsson in there until the final two, yet not only did they do that, they voted her the fucking winner. Were we watching the same show!?

It has to be me. It can’t be me that’s right and the majority of the nation that’s wrong… Can it?

Speaking of having an opposing view to the rest of the nation; Jonathan Ross returned to our screens last night, and how Friday night’s have missed him.

But forget all the controversy, what struck me most about last night’s show was Tom Cruise. Sure he is a staunch follower of a near cult-like religion but look beyond that, and he’s a lovely, lovely man.

I’ve never seen him give a bad interview, apart from the couch jumping incident of course. Every time I see him, he comes across humble, down to earth, able to laugh at himself and just a general all round nice guy. Now contrast that with the surly self-righteousness of Sean Penn and I say give me The Cruiser any day.

Watching Burnley’s Carling Cup heroics in mid-week, I was surprised by two things. First of all; how they managed to keep Tottenham out for so long with freshly sworn-in President Barack Obama playing centre back.

And second; why people didn’t make a bigger deal when ‘Transformers’ star Shia LaBeouf came off the bench and scored Burnley’s third goal.

"I Ain't Mad At Cha"

This week I got my first taste of the award-winning, critically acclaimed ‘Mad Men’ and it tingled my TV taste buds.

It’s hard to pinpoint the exact flavour of ‘Mad Men’, but if pressed I’d say that it’s a heady mix of whiskey, nicotine and untreated Chlamydia.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with this much lauded show; ‘Mad Men’ is set in the 1960’s and revolves around the professional and personal lives of the employees at the fictitious New York advertising agency Sterling Cooper.

‘Mad Men’ has managed to achieve that rare feat of earning widespread success both critically and commercially. The plaudits heaped on this excellent show more often than not focus on the show’s visual style and historical accuracy.

And it would be very hard to argue with either of those accolades; from the first frame of the Hitchcockian opening credits, you feel like you’ve been transported back to the early 60’s in all it’s chain-smoking, sexist, whiskey-swilling glory.

If you like your TV shows to be buttock-clenchingly tense and peppered with explosions, gun-fights and car chases, then this isn’t the show for you, but if you like an intelligent drama, freed from the shackles of big network pressure with something new and interesting to say then ‘Mad Men’ is well worth investing your time in.

The show’s main protagonist is ‘ad man’ Don Draper played by the brilliant Jon Hamm. A murky past and a complex personal life make Draper perfect serial drama fodder and Hamm plays him to tortured perfection. Hamm should be a bigger star, and it appears that ‘Mad Men’ is already helping him to achieve that; rumour has it that he will soon be appearing in another Emmy-winning show Tina Fey’s ’30 Rock’.

Jon Hamm isn’t the only member of the cast that deserves singling out for praise. There really isn’t a weak link in the entire ensemble, even January Jones, who creaked her way through ‘American Pie: The Wedding’ as Stifler’s love interest, brings something extra to her on screen alter ego.

Special praise goes out to the impossibly sexy, red headed ‘Firefly’ alumnus Christina Hendricks who plays Sterling Cooper office manager Joan Holloway. ‘Mad Men’ may be set in a time when it was very much still a man’s world, but Hendricks’ Joan can hold her own alongside most of the mad men and the voluptuous Hendricks oozes sex appeal despite being clad in often dowdy 60’s clothing.

‘Mad Men’s plethora of awards and steady Nielsen viewing figures is hopefully proof of what I’ve alluded to in this blog in the past; a return of the serious, intelligent TV viewer, which will hopefully reflect on screen, in a return of the intelligent, well-made TV show. AMC’s treatment of what has quickly becomes it’s crown jewel should show the likes of Fox what can be achieved by keeping faith and investing time in well-written shows with great casts… But I doubt Murdoch’s listening.

Don’t just take my word for it; if you enjoy watching brilliant actors speaking beautiful dialogue then do yourself a favour and let ‘Mad Men’ transport you back to a simpler time. It may not quite live up to the hype, let’s be honest; what ever does?, but you won’t be disappointed.

‘Mad Men’ airs on BBC4 Tuesdays at 10.30pm. Season 3 will debut on AMC in the States this summer.

Random TV Thoughts (Week ending 18th January):

- Kelly Brook joined the judging panel of ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ this week, joining the similarly untalented Amanda Holden alongside Piers Morgan and Simon Cowell. Am I the only person who thinks that when Kelly Brook smiles, she looks like Jack Nicholson’s Joker in the original ‘Batman’?

…Anyone? …Ok, just me then…

- ‘24’s return on Monday didn’t quite live up to my lofty expectations, but it was still a scorching return to form for Jack and the crew. I think I’ve already found my annoying storyline for the season though – step forward the President’s husband and his inquest into his son’s death.

I can’t wait for Jack vs. Tony tomorrow, I think Jack could definitely outdo Batman vs. Joker from ‘The Dark Knight’ for most violent interrogation of the year. If I was Tony I’d be slightly scared, it’s a good job he’s wearing the bad guy’s standard attire of all black…

- Fox finally did the merciful thing this week and announced that like the rabid dog it had become; ‘Prison Break’ would end after the current fourth season. Schofield and the boys had a good run; the show has made stars out of Wentworth Miller, Robert Knepper and Amaury Nolasco, as well as resurrecting the careers of Dominic Purcell and the mighty William Fichtner.

Sadly though, like Brooks in ‘The Shawshank Redemption’, beyond those prison walls the Fox River 8 just couldn’t survive and rather than put us through another disjointed, lumbering season Fox decided to pull the plug. Could Michael Rapaport be becoming the new Ted McGinley!?

- Down at the ‘Celebrity Big Brother’ house, Coolio continues to be the only thing worth watching in this disappointing series. With the calculating Ulrika Jonsson throwing out words like ‘bullying’ and ‘intimidation’, OFCOM needlessly got involved yet again. Coolio isn’t a bully, he’s just an idiot and a damn entertaining one at that, he’s from a different background to the majority of the other housemates, a fact that seems to be lost on the likes of Ulrika. Coolio can’t change who he is, just like Ulrika can’t change the fact that she’s a cold, manipulative, scrotum-necked bitch.

Kudos to Mutya ate too many Buenos for actually following through on her walk out promise, something Ulrika would never do, despite whining about wanting to go and crying crocodile tears at every opportunity.

Meanwhile, Verne Troyer finally showed us his drunk side, and in doing so further cemented his victory, Terry Christian continues to come off shockingly likable and Ben Adamzzzzz and Michelle Heaton continue to be living, breathing examples of the vacuous new breed of modern celebrities. Unfortunately, barring some Big Brother twist, Coolio is almost guaranteed to be next out, luckily the show ends on Friday, but if the certified gourmet chef goes on Monday then it’s going to be a long final week for ‘Celebrity Big Brother’.

Second, Minute or Bauer - The Return of 24

After a two year break, a show that has had every superlative out there thrown at it over the years is returning to our screens…

…No, I’m not talking about ‘Celebrity Big Brother’, or The Coolio Show as it should be renamed, I’m referring to relentless, real-time, Emmy-bogarting ‘24’, which after a writer’s strike induced hibernation last winter, returns bigger and badder than ever this Monday.

Jack Bauer’s return will be like welcoming back an old friend, his recent little jaunt to Africa definitely showed flickers of the old Bauer magic, even if ‘24: Redemption’ was overlong and for the most part; pretty boring.

We’ve literally spent almost a whole week of our lives watching this man’s ups and downs (mostly downs) in some kind of pervy voyeuristic style. And it’s safe to say that Jack Bauer has done some serious living, he’s squeezed more into 6 days or 144 hours/episodes than most people would in a lifetime; we’ve seen him lose his wife to a murderous co-worker, become a heroin addict, ‘die’ at least twice, torture countless people and display a canny skill for not needing to eat, sleep, drink or urinate for a whole day.

Bauer’s appeal lies squarely at Kiefer Sutherland’s feet, sure it’s impossible now to imagine anyone else playing Bauer, but I firmly believe that Sutherland took Jack Bauer and made him the cult hero he is today right from the start, I often wonder how much of Bauer is actually Sutherland. Just imagine if some other 80’s washed up brat-packer had been offered the role of Jack Bauer; you think ‘24’ would be as popular as it is with Judd Nelson as Jack Bauer? What about Emilio Estevez? Or Molly Ringwald?

I personally think a show centred around Kiefer Sutherland’s personal life would be a bigger hit than ‘24’ is, the guy comes across so humble and well-spoken in interviews and then you hear stories about his drinking and see videos of him dropping his pants in the middle of a bar or fighting a Christmas tree and you just think, “is that the same person?”

Sutherland’s eccentricities make Jack Bauer seem like a down-to-earth, emotionally stable, well-rounded guy and this is a man who will torture a man using nothing more than some tin foil and a smoked Salmon. Bauer has rightfully been the resurrection of Kiefer’s career but since 24 his film work has been patchy to say the least; ‘Taking Lives’ took liberties with it’s audience’s attention spans, ‘The Sentinel’ saw Sutherland play the antithesis of Jack Bauer as a by the books special agent, while sugar daddy Michael Douglas got to run around, well I say run, it was more like a light jog, breaking rules Bauer style and I wonder if his most recent effort ‘Mirrors’ took it’s name because it’s quite clearly a poor man’s ‘The Ring’.

So although Jack Bauer may have been the resuscitation of Kiefer Sutherland’s career it could also be it’s death, as no one wants to see him playing a security guard who gets scared by some mirrors anymore, they want to see him shooting terrorists and shouting “Damn it, Chloe” down the phone at least twice an episode and anything else just ain’t gonna cut it.

But ‘24’ is not just the Jack Bauer show, the writing for the most part is sharp and very rarely do the writers make a mis-step with a storyline that isn’t in-keeping with the show’s breakneck pace. Add to the mix the consistently good casting choices, even casting an ex-Goonie as a Government agent didn’t hurt the show, and the still unrivalled real-time, split screen aspect of the show and you have the recipe for one of the best shows of the 21st century and arguably the best serialised show not on HBO.

‘24’ was the pioneer of the now commonplace serialised continuous drama on primetime; and while the likes of ‘Prison Break’, ‘Heroes’ and ‘Lost’ have struggled to maintain their promise after spectacular first season debuts, ‘24’ has continued to thrill. Sure there are those out there who’d argue that the magic of that first season has never been emulated, and let’s be honest if they were to take their case to court, they’d have plenty of evidence; Kim and the Cougar, Behrooz and his creepy family in season 4, Jack’s family last season and of course who can forget the travesty of Tony being killed… Or was he?

That’s right, Everyone’s favourite Chicago Cubs fan Tony Almeida is back for season 7. The lack of silent clock for him after his ‘death’ fuelled speculation immediately that he wasn’t actually dead and now the producers have pulled the trigger on that exact storyline, with Almeida back from the ‘grave’ for the new season, those close to the show are assuring fans that this back from the dead storyline won’t wear out the already pretty weak suspension of disbelief that viewers need to watch this show already, but do we really care about the ‘how’, Tony’s back, and that’s good enough for me.

Almeida looks set to be the series villain judging by trailers, but I can’t help but feel that he’s going to come good in the end and help Jack go after Jon Voight’s big baddie – that’s what the die hards want to see anyway.

If they don’t go down the predictable route and they actually keep Tony evil, there’s going to be some serious opposition to Bauer this series, because, and I’m going out on a limb here, while casual viewers may think Jack Bauer is the coolest guy on TV, true ‘24’ fans know that Tony Almeida is the true heart and soul of the show and no one can tell a story with a lingering look like Carlos Bernard.

After the break last year, like many other fans, I’m expecting big things from this series of 24, so can it deliver?

Season 6 was by no means vintage, and a lot of fans let the producers know just that, and it looks like they listened; bringing back Tony is a sure sign that they want to give the fans what they want this time around. Having read snippets of what is in store for the first episode it sounds very much like, ‘24’ won’t be going down the soap opera route they meandered down last year with Jack’s family all showing up and that whole “is his nephew actually his son” subtext they seemed to be trying to set up.

I’m a little disappointed with Sky1’s decision to stick it on Monday nights this year to be honest, it reminds me of when they first got hold of ‘24’ from the BBC and bizarrely sent it out on a Thursday, Sunday night is traditionally ‘24’ night, but at least we’re only going to be a week behind America this time around.

Whatever season 7 of ‘24’ has in it’s Jack-pack for us, it’s just good to have Jack Bauer back on our screens, and come Monday night (Sunday in the States) all the speculation will stop and we’ll finally get season 7 of ‘24’ stuffed in our tele box, and while it might be a year late, for a show with such a heavy emphasis on ‘time’ I suppose it’s better late than never…

Prison Break Straps on the Water Skis

With ‘Prison Break’ currently on it’s mid-season break, now seems like the perfect time to dissect this one brilliant show like a Biology class Frog and try and explain just what has led to this almighty rut Schofield and the gang seem to be stuck in.

In case you haven’t been watching season 4 of Prison Break, let me give you a quick recap;

They need Scylla, but they can’t get it, wait now they have it, oh wait no they don’t, now they can’t get it back, ooh ooh now they’ve got it again, now they’ve lost it, now they’ve got it back again, now someone’s stolen it… and repeat.

Pepper in the worst TV storyline since Kim Bauer met a cougar, with Michael’s brain tumour and you just about have 'Prison Break’s fourth season in a nutshell.

If we’re honest, ‘Prison Break’ jumped the shark* the moment The Fox River 8 jumped the wall of the prison at the end of season 1…

It may be possible to argue that ‘Prison Break’ never actually jumped during the following two and a half seasons, though believe me, there are plenty of moments contending for the honour. But even the most die-hard of fans must admit though that Michael’s dream conversation with Westmoreland in episode fifteen of this lumbering fourth season gave it a rocket-boosted assist over that shark.

Now, ‘Prison Break’ has never been heavy on realism but that dream was totally out of context with the show, ‘24’ is another show that requires a certain suspension of disbelief, but they’d never insult their viewers with a corny dream sequence bringing back an old character, and a boring one at that, for a cheap shock.

As soon as Westmoreland’s craggy old face and that stupid cat came back from the dead, I knew that the show I once thought was going to be the greatest TV show of my generation had no chance of coming back from the infested waters it finds itself in.

The first season of ‘Prison Break’ really was brilliant, but looking back there was no way that they could sustain the show beyond the prison walls. The ways that they now keep the main protagonists involved with each other, beyond that prison setting, are becoming increasingly lazy and laborious.

One of the main problems plaguing ‘Prison Break’ at the moment is too many characters that I don’t care about, why is Gretchen still around? How many times is she going to be near death only to survive and come back once again? She was a waste of episode time in the last season and even more so this time around, they should have just capped her when they got rid of Whistler and been done with it.

Right now, the best thing about this show is Alexander Mahone, played by the brilliant William Fichtner, who has always been an underrated actor, but even he is struggling to polish these turd-like scripts and make them seem compelling, not to mention giving any sense of importance or urgency to the numerous Macguffins our heroes become involved in. This season has been littered with the sort of sloppy writing that has been creeping in since the end of season one.

It’s true the show has had it’s problems, but the whole Tancredi’s head in a box arc was a cheap tactic if they planned on bringing her back anyway. Sarah Wayne Callies’ pregnancy obviously would have posed the writers a problem and for her fleeting appearances in season 3 it was painfully obvious it wasn’t actually her playing the role of Sara, so when they killed her off, I for one was relieved, and a little happy because i want to chop her head off everytime she mopes onto my screen. But to give us a jaw-dropping moment like that and then snatch it back and say “oh wait, that didn’t really happen” was cheap. When it seemed like Michael’s love had been killed it gave real weight to their journey, the sacrifices they’d had to make and the effect it was having on those around them and begged the age old question of whether the means justify the end, but that all evaporated when they casually waltzed her back in at the start of this season.

A similar incident occurred at the start of both season 2 and season 4 with the deaths of Veronica and Whistler, two people who’s lives you’d been asked to invest your time in for the previous seasons, killed off with little to no build and seemingly no rhyme or reason for it as both hadn’t had their fates resolved, in my opinion at least. It’s almost a slap in the face for becoming emotionally invested – like one of those shitty film sequels where they kill off the survivors from the first film right at the start, because the original was never written with a sequel in mind.

It’s no wonder that the intelligent TV viewer seems to be switching over to the likes of ‘Mad Men’ and ‘The Wire’, shows that build slowly with arcs panning out over a number of seasons, where you may have to wait years for the pay-off to a storyline. The popularity of ‘The Wire’ is testament to the fact that people don’t need explosions and gunfights crowbarred in between every ad break to find a TV show compelling and addictive.

But sadly the concept of ‘slow-burn’ seems lost on the writers of ‘Prison Break’. The finest example of this coming in the recent episode where central character Brad Bellick met his demise; the writers must’ve had some idea that they were planning on offing Bellick at some point this year, so they could’ve started to develop his character as the season went on as having this urge to be a hero and give something back. Instead we got a couple of throwaway references to fatherhood and love in a conversation with Linc, that were completely out of character (and made it painfully obvious that he wasn’t long for this world) and the next thing we know, he’s sacrificing his life for the same guys he was trying to kill just two short seasons a go, for a cause he really had no investment in.

There was so little character development done with Bellick, yet the next episode the show got all sentimental and expected the viewers to care that he’d died. It was a major development as he’d been a series regular from day one, but by the time he was written out, he’d become nothing more than dead weight, which I’m assuming is why they wrote him out, but his death could’ve held so much more gravitas had it been done right, rather than have the feel that they just decided to try and boost ratings one week by killing a major character.

I’ll keep watching ‘Prison Break’ out of blind faith; it’s very rare that I’ll ditch a show, regardless of how bad it gets; how else can I explain my five seasons of ‘Dream Team’? And it’s fair to say that as far as TV goes there are worse ways to spend an hour of your life – step forward Gok Wan. Looking back now at the high concept, tension-filled drama of the sublime first season, it’s a shame what has become of this once great show and makes me wonder just how long it’s going to be before ‘Prison Break’ meets the same grisly end as so many of it’s characters…

*Jumping the shark - a colloquialism used by TV critics and fans to denote the point in a TV show's history where the plot veers off into absurd story lines or out-of-the-ordinary characterizations, particularly for a show with falling ratings apparently becoming more desperate to draw viewers in.

Shows that have "jumped the shark" are typically deemed to have passed their peak. The phrase is derivided from the ‘Happy Days’ episode in which The Fonz (Henry Winkler) literally jumped over a shark on water skis, generally considered by most to be the moment the classic show began it’s decline.