With the riveting second season premiere of "Prison Break" and the series debut of the thriller "Vanished," Fox once again gets a jump on the fall season.
While the other networks hold back nearly all their fall premieres until the more traditional mid-September, Fox is launching new and returning series now through early September as a way to hook viewers with fresh eye candy before October arrives.
That's when Fox annually shelves much of its series programming for a month while carrying the Major League Baseball playoffs and World Series.
Meanwhile, back in late summer, "Prison Break" and "Vanished" are the leading edge of fall's hottest programming trend -- serialized thrillers and dramas.
A dozen new series, including a pair of half-hour comedies, are part of the new wave. The trend is sparked by the continuing success of such hot shows as "24" and "Lost," which became huge hits by happily ensnaring viewers in suspenseful, overlapping story lines that pack a weekly cliffhanger kick.
'Prison Break' (8-9 p.m. Tonight)
It's still a killer thriller despite the preposterous original premise -- handsome Chicago engineer Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller) has himself tossed into Fox River Penitentiary to help his Death Row inmate brother Lincoln (Dominic Purcell) break out.
The goal? Prove that Lincoln was framed for the murder of the vice president's brother, part of a sinister government conspiracy.
Even with that crazy set-up, "Prison Break" became rocking good entertainment thanks to a motley crew of cellblock characters, Miller's charismatic breakout performance and the taut, ingenious storytelling of series creator Paul T. Scheuring and his staff.
Season One of "Prison Break" ended with a bang last spring as Michael, Lincoln and six other inmates pulled off a daring nighttime escape.
Now a massive manhunt is under way with Michael & Co. desperately on the run, trying to avoid capture. Just for fun, they should probably retitle the season "Prison Break: The Fugitives" or "Prison Break: On the Lam."
The key and wonderfully shrewd addition to the show's cast this season, FBI Agent Alexander Mahone (William Fichtner), is an intensely driven buckaroo in charge of tracking down the fleeing inmates. Fichtner, so memorable last season as creepy Sheriff Underlay on the short-lived ABC sci-fi thriller "Invasion," provides an instant jolt of energy to the suspenseful proceedings.
He should give Michael all kinds of enjoyable trouble in a psychological chess match between two imaginative equals.
Pumped up with surprises and high-octane thrills, the opening two weeks prove that "Prison Break" hasn't lost its momentum. And, yes, that evil weasel T-Bag (Robert Knepper) is still carting around his bloody severed hand, no doubt in search of a seedy physician to sew it back on with no questions asked. Oh, goody! -
