Prison Break: Season Two

For those of you who don't find 24 frustrating enough, Prison Break is your jam. This show was made for DVD, because watching it week to week is so maddening it could put you in real prison after murdering the creators for not getting to the damn point already. The first season had so much promise, but fell completely flat at the end when the escapees were running into a field being chased by every cop in Illinois. It's not really a legit prison break if everyone knows you're gone the moment you leave. Still, this season, which should be called So They Barely Broke Out of Prison, Now What?, manages to salvage what made the bulk of Season One so compelling. Without the mastermind Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller) and his pit bull bro Lincoln Burrows (Dominic Purcell) this show would be complete shit. But they manage to keep it together, despite the feeling that there's a roomful of writers banging their heads against the wall trying to keep this story going. (The special features do a decent job of addressing this.) Season Two adds William Fichtner as a crazed and dirty FBI agent, who's frustratingly always one step ahead, tracking the guys with orders to kill them. If you can overlook that the most wanted convicts in America manage to traverse the country without getting caught, one of the escapees that had his hand chopped off is not only still alive but conscious, and almost every bit of hope or resolution leads to a dead-end, you're gonna love this. It's not a complete exercise in futility, and the payoff at the end of the season proves that there's still hope for Season Three. But we'll be watching closely 'cause one misstep and we're sending the series to the chair. (That's where we put all our discarded DVDs. Just ask Grey's Anatomy and Boston Legal: Season Three.)