Misplaced Pages

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 74.12.106.171 (talk) at 21:42, 14 May 2007. The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

The second season began, with eleven principal speaking roles with star billing. FBI agent Alexander Mahone, played by William Fichtner, was introduced and assigned to locate the fugitives. This coincided with the quick exit of Robin Tunney, whose character was killed in the season premiere. There were other shifts in the casting with Jeff Perry replacing John Billingsley as Terrence Steadman as the latter was cast as a regular on the ABC series The Nine. Camille Guaty, who played Sucre's girlfriend Maricruz Delgado, was also cast on the same show. Similarly, Patricia Wettig, who plays Caroline Reynolds, has been cast on an ABC drama, Brothers and Sisters. Both Guaty and Wettig returned to reprise their roles towards the end of the season. A major recurring character was introduced in the form of William Kim, played by Reggie Lee. As of the fourteenth episode of the second season (the first to air in 2007), Marshall Allman has been removed from the cast listing in the opening credits.

Broadcast

The first season of Prison Break premiered on Fox in the United States on August 29, 2005 at 9:00 pm ET and went on hiatus on November 28, 2005. After the show resumed on March 20, 2006, it was moved to an earlier timeslot to 8:00 pm ET, followed by 24. Season 1 reached its completion on May 15, 2006. The return of Prison Break for its second season in the United States on August 21, 2006 retained its 8:00 pm ET timeslot. Canada has the same schedule as the United States via Global TV's simulcast.

Prison Break has also premiered in other countries around the world including non-English speaking countries.

Response

Reception in the USA

The following seasonal rankings are based on average total viewers per episode as recorded by Nielsen Media Research. The recording period begins in late September (the start of the U.S. network television season) and ends in late May.

Fox backed Prison Break with a large advertising campaign. The show debuted on August 29, 2005, to an estimated audience of 10.5 million viewers. Fox has not seen such success for summertime Monday numbers since Melrose Place and Ally McBeal aired in September of 1998. The two-hour premiere was credited as two episodes by the network. The premiere was the seventh most watched show in America that week according to Nielsen Research, ranking first in both the 18–49 and 18–34 demographics. The strong debut performance was also matched by various positive reviews. According to The New York Times, Prison Break was "more intriguing than most of the new network series, and it certainly is one of the most original", complimenting on its ability to create a "suspenseful thriller" and its "authentic look". Entertainment Weekly has dubbed it as one of the best new shows of 2005. On the other hand, The Washington Post criticized the show for its "somber pretentiousness" and "uniformly overwrought" performances. The show regularly attracted an average audience of 10 million viewers each week and led the debuts of television in the 2005 American fall season. Prison Break was originally planned for a 13-episode run, but was extended to include an extra nine episodes due to its popularity.

The premiere of the second season of Prison Break obtained an average of 9.4 million viewers, down from 10.5 million for the series premiere in August 2005. The decline was steeper among young-adult viewers with a decrease of 20 percent in the 18–49 demographic compared to its series premiere, but its household rating grew from 3.6% to 3.9% during the last half hour. A critic from USA Today commented on the "harebrained absurdities that have swamped this show", and blamed the writers for being "incredibly lazy" for the continuous use of the tattoo as an "all-purpose plot fix". Contrastingly, Detroit Free Press commended the second season premiere on matching the standard set by the first season, which delivered a "rocking good entertainment" due to its "motley crew of cellblock characters" and the "taut, ingenious storytelling of series creator Paul T. Scheuring and his staff." The second season obtained its largest audience on the original airdate of the episode, "Chicago" with an average of 10.1 million viewers. On the other hand, the season finale on its original airdate received one of the lowest audiences in the series' history, obtaining an average of 8.01 million viewers with 5% household rating and 8% household share; a decrease of 2.23 million viewers from the first season finale.

Reception outside the USA

As the only new television series to be positioned in the top 20 television shows of 2005/2006 in Canada, Prison Break achieved an average of 876,000 in the key demographic of 18–49 and 1.4 million viewers nationally for its first season. After its second season premiere on 21 August2006, the show has consistently retained the highest number of viewers in its timeslot in Canada, obtaining 1.609 million viewers for the second season finale.

Following a huge advertising campaign on Australian television network, Seven, which hyped the success the show found in North America, Prison Break premiered on February 1, 2006 with an average audience of 1.94 million as well as making its peak with 2.09 million viewers. The hype of the show was later complemented with encore screenings in the second week, before being set into a concrete time of 8:30 pm on Wednesday nights. The first season ended on July 12, 2006 with an average of 1.55 million viewers and a season average of 1.353 million viewers. The second season, promoted by the network as Prison Break - On the Run, premiered on January 31, 2007 at a new time of 9:40pm, with 1.226 million viewers (47% share).

The series premiered in France on August 312006 with an average of 5.5 million viewers (25.8% share). Ahead of Prison Break's second season premiere in France, it was heavily advertised by its local television network, M6 and Fox. In early October, Wentworth Miller, Dominic Purcell and Paul Scheuring appeared at MIPCOM in Cannes, along with rapper Faf Larage. Larage's song, Pas Le Temps is used to replace the show's original music in the title sequence, which generated publicity and helped to localize the show. The second season premiered on November 8 2006 with an average number of 7.5 million viewers (29.0% share), making it one of the most watched programs for the 2006 year in France.

The first season's broadcast in Hong Kong on TVB Pearl during September 5, 2006 and January 21, 2007 was a success, receiving the largest audience Hong Kong has ever had for a foreign drama and broke the record previously set by The X-Files. The series premiere obtained an average of 260,000 viewers while the first season finale obtained an average of 470,000 viewers (7.3%) and peaked at 590,000 (9.1%). Due to its overwhelming response in Hong Kong, TVB Pearl purchased the copyright of Season 2 and started to air it from March 6, 2007. The second season premiere received an average of 270,000 viewers while peaking at 310,000. TVB Pearl expects the second season's ratings to exceed the ratings of Season 1.

In Poland, the series premiered on January 28, 2007 to 7 million viewers (38% share) making it the highest rated episode of any foreign series in Polsat history. It was also the highest rated show of the week in the 16–49 demographic (46% share).

Prison Break is not imported by China. However, the series is available for free downloads, online TV, as well as on the black market on bootleg DVDs among many other American TV shows.

Ratings

Template:Infobox TV ratings Due to its storyline and setting, Prison Break's target audience is the 18–34 age group. The show contains adult content including violence, coarse language, sexual and drug references. Concerns have been raised by the Parents Television Council in the United States about the timeslot in which Prison Break is broadcast (8:00 pm ET) since the show features some scenes which contain graphic content. The series is given a TV-14 rating in both the United States and Canada.

A similar rating is also used in other countries. Prison Break is rated M in Australia, A+18 in Chile, PG in Hong Kong, PG13V in South Africa, 15 in the United Kingdom and 12 in The Netherlands. In France, the broadcasting watchdog, Conseil Superieur de l'Audiovisuel (CSA), also complained that the violence in some episodes exceeded the amount allowed for its rating, which is "not for under 10s". Under France's regulations, any higher ratings would move the show away from its current primetime timeslot to a later timeslot. However, their decision to change the rating will only affect the first season, which has already been broadcast, and not the second season.

Awards

Following a successful airing of the series' first thirteen episodes, Prison Break was nominated for its first award, the 2005 People's Choice Award for Favorite New TV Drama. The other nominees in the same category were Commander in Chief and Criminal Minds. Prison Break won the award in January 2006 and it is the only award the show has won to date. Also in January 2006, the show had two nominations at the 63rd Golden Globe Awards, which were Best Drama Television Series and Best Actor in a Drama Television Series for Wentworth Miller's performance. The show's lead actor, Wentworth Miller, received another nomination for his performance in the first season at the 2005 Saturn Awards for Best Actor on Television. Likewise, the series was nominated for 2005 Saturn Award for Best Network Television Series. At the 2006 Television Critics Association Awards, the show was nominated for Best New Drama Series. Nominations for technical awards include the 2006 Eddie Award for Best Edited One-Hour Series for Commercial Television (Mark Helfrich for the pilot episode) and the 2006 Primetime Emmy award for Outstanding Main Title Theme Music (Ramin Djawadi). In December 2006, Robert Knepper was nominated for the 2006 Satellite Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television.

Other media and releases

In addition to the television broadcast of the show, episodes of Prison Break has also been released in other forms of media. Furthermore, derivative work of the show has been produced in the form of short videos for mobile phones. There has also been several official tie-ins in print and on the internet.

Currently, only the first season has been released on DVD. At the 2007 International Consumer Electronics Show, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment announced that the complete first season of Prison Break will also be released on the Blu-ray Disc format in early 2007.

Towards the end of the first season, episodes of Prison Break were made available for purchase online at the iTunes Music Store, which began on May 9, 2006.

After the premiere of the second season of Prison Break, Fox began allowing online streaming of the current episode for free via more than 50 websites including AOL, Google and Yahoo!, as well as its own extensive network. However, this was restricted to the United States only. The first three episodes of season 2 were broadcast commercial free, available for a week after their television broadcast date. Online streaming of episodes was postponed after the third episode. However, due to the show's three-week broadcast hiatus prompted by Fox's broadcast of the Major League Baseball playoff games in October, a strategy was developed by News Corporation (the parent company of Fox Broadcasting Company and MySpace) in an attempt to maintain their viewers' interest in the show. Starting from October, Fox began to stream past episodes of the second season on the social networking site MySpace and websites of the network's owned and operated stations (the stations are part of the Fox Television Stations Group). Although commercials are to be aired throughout the broadcast, the episodes are free of charge.

A spinoff series, Prison Break: Proof of Innocence, was produced exclusively for mobile phones and was broadcast first to Sprint customers in April, 2006 via on SprintTV's Fox station. The first episode of Prison Break: Proof of Innocence became available on the internet for viewing on May 8, 2006. This was an exclusive deal made between Toyota Motor and News Corporation's Fox network, allowing Toyota to sponsor exclusive content of the show and to obtain advertising exclusivity.

In printed media, the show's tie-in products include an official magazine and a book written in an in-universe perspective. The official magazine, published by Titan Publishing, was launched on 21 November 2006. Each issue contains interviews with selected cast and crew members with other feature stories. The tie-in novel, Prison Break: The Classified FBI Files (ISBN 1-4165-3845-3), contains details of the show's characters pertaining to the second season's storyline. Written by Paul Ruditis, the book is published by Simon & Schuster and is due to be released on May 8, 2007.

References

1. "Television series: 2005–06 primetime wrap". May 26, 2006. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |source= ignored (help)
2. "'Prison' Breaks Strong for FOX" Zap2it.com. August 30, 2005. Retrieved on February 17, 2006.
3. The top ten shows of the week according to Nielsen Research IMDb. Archive. Retrieved on February 17, 2006.
4. "Everyone's watching Post-Katrina coverage". Variety. September 7, 2005. Retrieved on September 15, 2006.
5. "Jailhouse Heroes Are Hard to Find". The New York Times. August 29, 2005. Retrieved on September 15, 2006.
6. "Get Caught Up On 'Prison Break'". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved on September 15, 2006.
7. "'Prison Break': Sharpen Up Those Spoons". The Washington Post. August 29, 2005. Retrieved on September 15, 2006.
8. "Prison Break's big debut" The Age. February 2, 2006. Retrieved on February 17, 2006.
9. Cite error: The named reference EWeekly was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
10. "Premieres, finales falter" USA Today. August 29, 2006. Retrieved on August 31, 2006.
11. "Fox to Stream Prison Break, Vanished" Mediaweek.com. August 22, 2006. Retrieved on August 31, 2006.
12. "What to watch Monday". USA Today. August 27, 2006. Retrieved on September 15, 2006.
13. Fox tonight: Great return, so-so debut. Detroit Free Press. August 21, 2006. Retrieved on September 15, 2006.
14. NBC, "NBC ratings results for the week of Feb. 5–11", The Futon Critic. February 13, 2007. Retrieved on February 14, 2007.
15. Broadcast TV Ratings for Monday, April 2, 2007, Entertainmentnow.wordpress.com. April 3, 2007. Retrieved on April 5, 2007.
16. Global Television Ratings CNW Telbec. September 18, 2006. Retrieved on October 1, 2006.
17. A Global Ratings Flash CanWest Mediaworks. November 22, 2006. Retrieved on November 25, 2006.
18. Top Programs – Total Canada, Bureau of Broadcast Measurement, April 2–8, 2007. Retrieved on April 22, 2007.
19. "Prison nabs viewers" News.com.au. February 2, 2006. Retrieved on February 17, 2006.
20. Seven Network Ratings Report for Wednesday, 12 July 2006 Ebroadcast.com.au. July 13, 2006. Retrieved on November 29, 2006.
21. Seven dominates television in 2006 Seven Network. December 4, 2006. Retrieved on December 6, 2006.
22. Prison Break - On the Run Yahoo!7. Retrieved on 16 February, 2007.
23. "Heroes and Prison Break Deliver for Seven" World Screen February 2, 2007. Retrieved on February 3, 2007.
24. Prison Break, la série phénomène, crée l'événement sur M6 M6 September 1, 2006. Retrieved on November 12, 2006. Template:Fr icon
25. "VOD Rollout for Prison Break in France" World Screen October 10, 2006. Retrieved on November 12, 2006.
26. "Helping TV Hits Translate Overseas" Time October 17, 2006. Retrieved on November 12, 2006.
27. 1ère chaîne avec Prison Break M6 November 9, 2006. Retrieved on November 12, 2006. Template:Fr icon
28. "59萬觀眾睇《逃》結局 創英文台收視紀錄", Yahoo! News. January 23, 2007. Retrieved on March 17, 2007. Template:Zh icon
29. "《逃2》首播搶走31萬觀眾", Yahoo! News. March 8, 2007. Retrieved on March 17, 2007. Template:Zh icon
30. Prison Break on Polsat, WirtualneMedia. January 30, 2007. Retrieved on February 14, 2007. Template:Pl icon
31. "Prison Break popular in China even though it's illegal", BuddyTV. April 3, 2007. Retrieved on April 4, 2007.
32. "Worst TV Show of the Week". Parents Television Council. September 5, 2006. Retrieved on September 15, 2006.
33. "'Prison' too violent?" Variety. November 21, 2006. Retrieved on November 21, 2006.
34. "CES 2007: 24, Prison Break Hit Blu-ray". IGN. January 8, 2007. Retrieved on January 10, 2007.
35. "Prison Break Bonus DVDs". Tvshowsondvd.com. 6 August 2006. Retrieved on 20 August 2006.
36. "Fox frees Prison Break without ads". C21Media. August 23, 2006. Retrieved on August 25, 2006.
37. Fox Shows on MySpace During MLB Playoffs The Associated Press. October 4, 2006. Retrieved October 6, 2006.
38. Prison Break: The Classified FBI Files, Simon & Schuster. Retrieved March 16, 2007.

External links

Network sites

• Prison Break - Channel Seven (Australia)
• Prison Break - Global (Canada)
• Prison Break - Channel 6 (Ireland)
• Prison Break - Five (United Kingdom)
• Zakon Brace - RTL Televizija (Croatia)

Other sites

• Prison Break DVD - Official DVD website
• Prison Break on MySpace TV - Watch recent episodes for free
• Television Without Pity - Detailed episode summaries
• BuddyTV - News and show summaries

• 2000s American television series
• 2005 television program debuts
• Crime television series
• Drama television series
• Fox network shows
• Prison Break
• Serial drama television series
• Television series by Fox Television Studios
• Television shows set in the United States
• Television shows set in Illinois