The TV Zone

Robert Wisdom, breaks out - pun intended - on third season of "Prison Break."

Come Monday, most of us TV critical types will be mentally fogged over after the Emmys (will Ry sing?! Will he dance?!) so it seems like a good a time as any to give a quick preview of the third season premiere of "Prison Break" (this Monday at 8).

For those few "Breakoholics" who missed Fox's late August preview (on the website) you should know (and likely do already) that Scofield (Wentworth Miller) is stuck, and I do mean stuck, in a super max in Panama called Sona, along with a lot of escapees from Season 2, like T-Bag (Robert Knepper), as well as extremely luckless FBI special agent Al Mahone, played by Bill Fichtner (and East Meadow native.)

It's BAAAD in Sona - really really really bad. God, it's not five minutes before everyone wishes they were back at Fox River State, which was a Four Seasons resort by comparison. Everyone here is mean, really really mean; they snarl a lot. They all need bathes, and shaves, too. They sweat profusely, all the time, even when it's not hot, and not a stick of deodorant in sight. And when they don't sweat, they eat mud for dinner - and LIKE it. There are no guards in Sona - left a long time ago, and it's not entirely clear why, except that (well) this really is not a fun place to be. The boss-man-by-default of the place is a very gnarly, nasty, negative nutjob by the name of Lechero - played by that fine actor from "The Wire," Robert Wisdom. For entertainment - and he is also kind of the entertainment committee chairman - inmates have to fight to the death, and to add insult to very serious (and indeed fatal) injury, the loser's body is left to rot in the sun for a few days.

What else can I tell you without giving too much away? Ah, yes, well this should be obvious: Scofield thinks he's got a ticket out after just a day or two here, but not so fast Sco, old buddy. There's a full season ahead, and another prison to break out of, and so, he's told to find some guy named Whistler (played by another new show addition, Brit actor, Chris Vance) or it's curtains for...

Now, I've gone too far. Sorry. In any event, looks like a good season based on the first episode. Keep an eye on Lechero; he's this year's break-out character. No doubt about that.