Guest Author - Jen Whitten

Once the hottest new drama on television, Prison Break has experienced a fall from grace few shows on FOX are ever able to recover from before receiving the final axe. Has this show’s blatant disregard for women signaled its impending demise?

At its core, Prison Break is a story about the unbreakable bond of family and the redeeming qualities of love. While originally geared towards men, women quickly lined up for the show’s bandwagon once Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller) took off his shirt to reveal his tattooed master plan. As the weeks progressed, men stuck around for the fantastical prison escape plot and women as a whole watched for the ever growing cast of sexy men.

In truth, Prison Break was able to boast an action-packed plot filled with twists, brilliant writing and a gifted cast of actors. What the show lacked was respect for women.

During Season 1, lawyer Veronica Donovan (Robin Tunney) and Dr. Sara Tancredi (Sarah Wayne Callies) took a backseat to most of the prison action while maintaining their status as important love interests for the brothers Scofield and Burrows (Dominic Purcell). Each played a pivotal role in the events leading to the first prison break.

And their prize? Donovan was shot in the head during the first episode of Season 2 while Tancredi was rewarded with a drug-induced coma, rehab, various attempts on her life and an excellent torture scene with Agent Paul Kellerman (Paul Adelstein). After her escape, she sacrificed her freedom so the brothers could escape without apprehension. As no good deed can go unpunished, they chopped off her head and stuffed it into a box.

For Season 3, two additional women joined the cast; however, fans were unable to get over the death of the good doctor so the new women of Prison Break were never given a chance. Honestly, it didn’t matter in the long run since neither actress was given a plausible back story or any character development.

To combat the Season 3 rating slide, Season 4 featured the return of Callies in her role of Dr. Tancredi – with her head – and actually gave her something to do other than play damsel in distress. Unfortunately, Prison Break appears incapable of having multiple women on set at any one time so, by the mid-season finale, both of the remaining ladies were either shipped off for babysitting duty or shot and left for the cops to find.

It comes as no surprise to even the most devoted fan that Season 4 of Prison Break is the last for the series, despite the fact writer/producer Nick Santora has said many times the show was planned to last five full seasons.

But what was the final straw for Prison Break? Did viewers finally get tired of watching women murdered in new and terrible ways? As not even supporting actresses were able to get away unscathed, the above examples are far from what could be an exhaustive list. Sure, the guys got toes and hands removed, but rarely were they portrayed as disposable in the process.

Was it perhaps the fact that very little of the series has actually taken place within prison walls? Or maybe it was that Prison Break has featured not one, but two prison breaks that occurred in increasingly unrealistic fashions?

While the exact downfall of Prison Break may never be fully understood, there is no denying the series has run its course. It was a good run while it lasted. Wasn’t it?

Prison Break, you will be missed.