Writing Lessons from TV: Prison Break

One of my new must-see TV programs is Prison Break. It, along with Bones, is one of the shows that I didn’t watch last season but heard lots of good things about. So I downloaded the first season from iTunes, and am I glad I did.

From a purely viewer standpoint, I look forward to each and every episode, anxious to know what happens next. But there’s that writer part of me that’s watching too, trying to figure out how the script writers make the show so addictive. It bowls down to two things — tension and the characters.

First, the tension. I start feeling it before the program even starts each week. The first season, it was all about if Michael Scofield’s plan to get his brother (Lincoln Burrows, on death row for a murder he didn’t commit) and himself out of prison, along with a few other guys who were crucial to his carefully crafted plan, would succeed. I was on the edge of my seat, chewing my fingernails, afraid they’d be caught tunneling behind the wall, digging a hole. This season, they’re on the run, and not only do they have cops all over the country on the lookout for them, their faces are splashed on the fronts of newspapers and on TV newscasts. They’ve got an FBI agent (William Fichtner, who made the leap to Prison Break after Invasion was cancelled) who is at least almost as smart as Michael on their tails. They’re the eight most wanted men in America. On top of that is the fact that Lincoln’s son, LJ (Marshall Allman), has been charged with the murders of his mother and either her husband or boyfriend, not clear on that. Again, it’s a setup. That’s what’s providing another layer of tension, the government conspiracy to make Lincoln Burrows (Dominic Purcell) the fall guy for the murder of the president’s brother. The writers have shown us just enough of the workings of that conspiracy to make us curious for more information and to make it frighteningly real. And now that the two people who were in Michael’s and Lincoln’s corner have been killed, it’s literally them against the world. This constant building of tension is the equivalent of a novel writer being able to make the reader keep turning those pages even though it’s 2 a.m. and they have to go to work in the morning.

Another kind of tension shown in Prison Break is romantic tension, between Michael and Dr. Sara Tancredi (Sarah Wayne Callies), the prison physician. He goes in knowing that access to the infirmary is crucial to his escape plan, so he cultivates a good relationship with Sara and fakes having diabetes so he has to be in the infirmary regularly. What he doesn’t expect is to have feelings for her, ones that grow each time he sees her. Now that he’s escaped, he’s having regrets about how she must feel he faked his feelings and how she’s now in trouble for aiding in the escape. His cellmate, Sucre, figures out what’s going through Michael’s head as the escapees head down the road in a stolen vehicle. “You fell for her.” And her for him. There’s one scene where Sara and Michael are together where you just can tell by the look in his eyes that he wishes he’d met her under different circumstances. What he says to her is very powerful. I’m hopeful these two will have the chance to meet up again.

Characterization is the key to any good, memorable story, and the writers of Prison Break are very good at crafting three-dimensional characters that aren’t all good and aren’t all bad. Even for the worst of them, the writers give us glimpses of vulnerability and clues about what made these people who they are. T-Bag (Robert Knepper), the horrible rapist and murderer, has a very sad past that no doubt made him the person he is. Mob Boss John Abruzzi (Peter Stormare) kills with no problem, but fear is stricken in his heart when his little children are threatened. Then there are the guys who were in prison for lesser crimes. C-Note’s (Rockmond Dunbar) in for transporting stolen goods, and all he wants is to get back to his wife and daughter. He’s a man whose path was also misdirected by unfair treatment, at the hands of a corrupt officer in the Army. Sucre (Amaury Nolasco) is one of my favorite characters. He’s Michael’s cellmate when they’re in prison, and you can tell when they part ways outside the walls that Michael really likes this guy where he’d just as soon not see any of the rest of them again. Sucre’s in prison for holding up a store because he wanted to buy his girlfriend an engagement ring. He did it for love, and that’s why he made his escape too. Plus, he’s just funny. The most compelling character, however, is Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller). He’s brilliant, has a single-minded focus, and cares deeply for those in need. Not every man would leave his good life behind to get himself thrown in prison so he can break his brother out.

So the writers make us care about the characters and then raise the very real possibility that the characters won’t survive. They’ve taken a page from the LOST handbook in that respect. Already this season, a main character has been killed. One died at the end of last seasson. The buzz is that others are about to make their exits. And because the writers have made us care through the characterization, we all have those characters that we hope make it. For me, that’s Michael, Lincoln, Sara, Sucre and LJ. Only time will tell if they make it, or my viewer’s heart will be broken.

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