Dead Show Walking: Prison Break

After four seasons, Fox is finally sending Prison Break to death row. "It just got down to the point where a lot of stories have been told," the network's entertainment president, Kevin Reilly, told the assembled TV critics and bloggers at the Television Critics Association press tour.

No kidding. Michael Scofield and his degenerate band of escaped convicts, fallen lawmen, turncoat assassins, drug addicts, murders and rapists have been in and out of prison, double and triple-crossed, shot and maimed more times than I can remember and yet they are still trying to finish "just one more thing."

The show was great in the beginning as Scofield (Wentworh Miller), a brilliant engineer got himself arrested to break his framed, lowlife brother Lincoln Burrows out of jail, with an elaborate body tattoo to guide his way. Scofield was a force of good thrown into the lion's den, but, over the course of four seasons, broke so many laws and crossed so many boundaries that he became no better than those he brought with him, drained of his morale authority.

The cast of Prison Break was the most depraved, unlikable group of characters assembled on TV since Oz, and I say this as a person who watched every episode. This season, I've just been watching with a morbid desire to see them all get killed. Reilly said the decision to cancel allows the series to end on a high creative note. I can only hope the writers follow though on the trajectory of the show and leaves all the characters dead in unmarked graves. Any happy ending would be a disappointment.

That being I will miss there being someone named T-Bag on network television. I can't believe they got away with that one. There was more good news too — it looks like Fringe will continue and has a coveted slot after American Idol. Wow, usually Fox just destroys everything I love.