Kigali is short on entertainment so I’m engaging in some Prison Breaks

One of my particularities is that I can live without TV quite happily but when I do get some opportunity to watch, I tend to overdose. While in Kenya I brought the complete 2 seasons of Prison Break on a pirate DVD with Chinese subtitles. Most people know of the series about the brother of an innocent man on death row getting himself incarcerated in order to break them both out of jail.

On the surface, it sounds like a modern day remake of The Fugitive, except that the whole of the first series cleverly takes place in the closed world of the prison. The second series manhunt is more reminiscent of the Fugitive but in fact the whole franchise owes much to other, more modern sources...

It has LOST’s focus on a ensemble of characters and their multiple storylines, it has 24’s “one highly skilled man against the system, with insiders double crossing each other” and its breakneck pace. It has both 24 and LOST’s page turner endings and also has elements Big Brother in the “who is going to be eliminated next?” angle. There’s even a satellite tracking shot in the second series that could have been lifted directly from Google Earth and some close up eye shots straight out of Blairwitch. Despite its blatant derivative elements its pretty engrossing. At least when you live in central Africa.