The first season of ''

Prison Break ''Prison Break'' is an American Crime film#Crime drama, crime Drama (film and television), drama television series created by Paul Scheuring for Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox. The series revolves around two brothers: Lincoln Burrows (Dominic P ...

'', an American serial drama television series, commenced airing in the United States and Canada on August 29, 2005, on Mondays at 9:00 p.m. ( EST) on

Fox Foxes are small-to-medium-sized omnivorous mammals belonging to several genera of the family Canidae. They have a flattened skull; upright, triangular ears; a pointed, slightly upturned snout; and a long, bushy tail ("brush"). Twelve species ...

. ''Prison Break'' is produced by Adelstein-Parouse Productions, in association with Rat Entertainment,

Original Film Original Film is an American film and television production company founded by Neal H. Moritz. Notable films the company has produced include the '' I Know What You Did Last Summer'', '' Cruel Intentions'' and ''Fast & Furious'' franchises, the ...

and

20th Century Fox Television 20th Television, Inc. (formerly known as TCF Television Productions, Inc., 20th Century-Fox Television and 20th Century Fox Television) is the television studio arm of 20th Century Studios, owned by Disney Television Studios, a division of the Di ...

. The season contains 22 episodes, and concluded on May 15, 2006. In addition to the 22 regular episodes, a special, " Behind the Walls", was aired on October 11, 2005. ''Prison Break'' revolves around two brothers:

Lincoln Burrows This is a list of characters in the United States, American television series ''Prison Break''. The characters are listed alphabetically by their last name or by the name which appears in the episode credits. Overview : = Ensemble cast, Main c ...

, who has been sentenced to death for a crime he did not commit and his younger brother

Michael Scofield Michael J. Scofield, portrayed by Wentworth Miller, is a fictional character and one of the main protagonists of the American television series ''Prison Break''. Character development Michael was conceived after ''Prison Break'' creator Paul Sch ...

, a genius who devises an elaborate plan to help him escape prison by purposely getting himself imprisoned. A total of ten actors received

star billing Billing is a performing arts term used in referring to the order and other aspects of how credits are presented for plays, films, television, or other creative works. Information given in billing usually consists of the companies, actors, direct ...

in the first season, with numerous supporting roles. Filming took place mostly in and around the

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

area; Fox River was represented by

Joliet Prison Joliet or Jolliet may refer to: People * Louis Jolliet (1645–1700), French-Canadian explorer of North America * Oscar Joliet (1878–1969), Belgian scholar-priest and Catholic Auxiliary bishop of Ghent Places in the United States * Joliet, Ill ...

, which had closed in 2002. Critical reviews of the first season were generally favorable. The first season was released on DVD in Region One as a six-disc boxed set under the title of ''Prison Break: Season One'' on August 8, 2006.

Cast

Main characters

Dominic Purcell Dominic Haakon Myrtvedt PurcellO'Connor, B,Break Out". '' Men's Fitness''. December/January 2007 Issue; retrieved 18 December 2006. (born 17 February 1970) is an Australian actor. He is best known as Lincoln Burrows in ''Prison Break'' (2005� ...

Wentworth Miller Wentworth Earl Miller III (born June 2, 1972) is an American actor known for playing the role of Michael Scofield in ''Prison Break'', for which he received a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Drama in ...

Robin Tunney Robin Tunney (born June 19, 1972) is an American actress who made her film debut in '' Encino Man'' (1992), and later rose to prominence with headline parts in the cult films ''Empire Records'' (1995) and '' The Craft'' (1996). Her performance in ...

Veronica Donovan This is a list of characters in the United States, American television series ''Prison Break''. The characters are listed alphabetically by their last name or by the name which appears in the episode credits. Overview : = Ensemble cast, Main c ...

Peter Stormare Rolf Peter Ingvar Stormare (; Birth name, né Storm, 27 August 1953) is a Swedish actor. He played Prince Hamlet, Hamlet for Ingmar Bergman, Gaear Grimsrud in the film ''Fargo (1996 film), Fargo'' (1996) and List of Prison Break characters#John ...

John Abruzzi This is a list of characters in the American television series ''Prison Break''. The characters are listed alphabetically by their last name or by the name which appears in the episode credits. Overview : = Main cast (credited) : = Recurr ...

Amaury Nolasco Amaury Nolasco Garrido (born December 24, 1970) is a Puerto Rican actor. He is best known for the role of Fernando Sucre on the Fox television series ''Prison Break'' (2005–2008, 2017), and for his role in ''Transformers'' (2007). Early li ...

Fernando Sucre This is a list of characters in the United States, American television series ''Prison Break''. The characters are listed alphabetically by their last name or by the name which appears in the episode credits. Overview : = Ensemble cast, Main c ...

Marshall Allman Marshall Scot Allman (born April 5, 1984) is an American actor. He is known to television audiences for his role as L. J. Burrows on the Fox television series ''Prison Break''. He is also known for playing Tommy Mickens on ''True Blood''. Earl ...

as L.J. Burrows *

Wade Williams Wade Andrew Williams is an American actor. He is known for his various character roles, and for a major supporting role as correctional officer Brad Bellick on the Fox television series ''Prison Break'' and Father Cronin on ''The Bernie Mac S ...

as Captain

Brad Bellick This is a list of characters in the United States, American television series ''Prison Break''. The characters are listed alphabetically by their last name or by the name which appears in the episode credits. Overview : = Ensemble cast, Main c ...

Paul Adelstein Paul Adelstein (born April 29, 1969) is an American actor. He is known for the role of Agent Paul Kellerman in the Fox Broadcasting Company, Fox television series ''Prison Break'' and his role as pediatrician Cooper Freedman in the American Broad ...

as Secret Service Agent

Paul Kellerman Paul Kellerman, also known as Owen Kravecki, is a fictional character from the American television series, ''Prison Break''. Played by Paul Adelstein, the character was introduced to the series as a Secret Service special agent in the series pi ...

Robert Knepper Robert Lyle Knepper (born July 8, 1959) is an American actor best known for his role as Theodore "T-Bag" Bagwell in the Fox drama series ''Prison Break'' (2005–2009, 2017), Samuel Sullivan in the final season of the NBC series '' Heroes'' ...

Theodore "T-Bag" Bagwell Theodore "T-Bag" Bagwell is a fictional character from the American television series ''Prison Break''. Played by Robert Knepper, he is part of the main group of characters in the series and is part of the Fox River Eight. After guest-starring i ...

Rockmond Dunbar Rockmond Dunbar (born January 11, 1973) is an American actor, best known for his roles as Baines on the NBC series ''Earth 2 (TV series), Earth 2'', Kenny Chadway on Showtime (TV network), Showtime family drama ''Soul Food (TV series), Soul Food' ...

Benjamin Miles "C-Note" Franklin This is a list of characters in the United States, American television series ''Prison Break''. The characters are listed alphabetically by their last name or by the name which appears in the episode credits. Overview : = Ensemble cast, Main c ...

Sarah Wayne Callies Sarah Wayne Callies is an American actress. She is known for starring as Sara Tancredi in Fox's ''Prison Break'', Lori Grimes in AMC's '' The Walking Dead'', and more recently, as Birdie Nicolletti in ABC's '' The Company You Keep''. She ha ...

as Dr.

Sara Tancredi This is a list of characters in the American television series ''Prison Break''. The characters are listed alphabetically by their last name or by the name which appears in the episode credits. Overview : = Main cast (credited) : = Recurr ...

Recurring characters

Episodes

Production

Crew

The season was produced by Adelstein-Parouse Productions, in association with Original Television and

. The executive producers were creator

Paul Scheuring Paul T. Scheuring (born November 20, 1968) is an American screenwriter and director of films and television shows. His work includes the 2003 film '' A Man Apart'' and the creation of the television drama ''Prison Break'', for which he was also c ...

Marty Adelstein Martin Bruce Adelstein is an American television producer. Before becoming a producer, he was a partner at the Endeavor Talent Agency, where he was one of the founding members. As of 2019, Adelstein is the CEO and founder of Tomorrow Studios, a j ...

, Neal H. Moritz, Dawn Parouse,

Brett Ratner Brett Ratner (born March 28, 1969) is an American film director and producer. He directed the Rush Hour (film series), ''Rush Hour'' film series, ''The Family Man'', ''Red Dragon (2002 film), Red Dragon'', ''X-Men: The Last Stand'', ''Tower Heist ...

and

Matt Olmstead Matt Olmstead is an American writer and producer for television shows. Early life Olmstead graduated from California State University, Chico in 1988. He is an alumnus of the College of Humanities and Fine Arts. He went to Hollywood in hopes of ...

. The staff writers were Scheuring, co-executive producers

Nick Santora Nick Santora (born 1970) is a writer and producer born in Queens, New York. He won the Best Screenplay of the Competition in the New York City Independent International Film Festival. He has also written for and/or produced ''The Sopranos'', ' ...

and

Zack Estrin Zack Estrin (September 16, 1971 – September 23, 2022) was an American television producer and screenwriter. Estrin began his career as a writer and producer on ''Charmed'', ''Dawson's Creek'', and ''Tru Calling'', before serving as a co-execu ...

, supervising producer

Karyn Usher Karyn Usher is an American television producer and writer. She has produced twenty-four episodes for the television series ''Prison Break'', and additionally written twelve episodes. She has also written single episodes from the series '' One Tre ...

and Olmstead. The regular director throughout the season was

Bobby Roth Robert Jay Roth (born 1950) is an American television and film director, screenwriter and producer. Life and career Born and raised in Los Angeles, Roth began his tertiary education at the University of California, Berkeley studying philoso ...

; additional directors were

Jace Alexander Jason "Jace" Alexander (born April 7, 1964) is an American former actor and television director. In 2015, Alexander was arrested for the downloading and file sharing of child pornography, and later pled guilty to one count of promoting a sexual p ...

Matt Earl Beesley Matthew Earl Beesley is an American film director and television director living in Bell Canyon, California; he is the son of Dr. Earl Beesley. From 1984 to 1988, he worked as assistant director on a number of notable films including ''National ...

and

Dwight H. Little Dwight Hubbard Little (born January 13, 1956) is an American film and television director, known for directing the films '' Marked for Death'', '' Rapid Fire'', '' Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home'', '' Murder at 1600'' and '' Halloween 4: The Re ...

. Its incidental music was composed by

Ramin Djawadi Ramin Djawadi (born 19 July 1974) is an Iranian-German film score composer, conductor, and record producer. He is known for his scores for the HBO series ''Game of Thrones'', for which he was nominated for Grammy Awards in 2018 and 2020. He is al ...

Filming

Most of the first season of the series was filmed on location in and around Chicago.Ryan, Maureen,
Joliet prison is a 'Break'-out star
, ''

The Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is an American daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Founded in 1847, it was formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper", a slogan from which its once integrated WGN radio and WGN tel ...

''. August 24, 2005. Retrieved on December 5, 2005. After it was closed down in 2002,

became the set of ''Prison Break'' in 2005, standing in as

Fox River State Penitentiary ''Prison Break'' is an American crime drama television series created by Paul Scheuring for Fox. The series revolves around two brothers: Lincoln Burrows (Dominic Purcell) and Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller); Lincoln has been sentenced ...

on screen. Scenes set in Lincoln's cell, the infirmary and the prison yard were all shot on location at the prison.Set Visit: Prison Break
''

IGN ''IGN'' is an American video gaming and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa district and is headed by its former e ...

''. March 17, 2006. Retrieved on September 14, 2006. Lincoln's cell is the same one in which

John Wayne Gacy John Wayne Gacy (March 17, 1942 – May 10, 1994) was an American serial killer and sex offender who raped, tortured and murdered at least thirty-three young men and boys in Norwood Park Township, Cook County, Illinois, Norwood Park Tow ...

was incarcerated. Most of the production crew refused to enter the cell, thinking that it was haunted. Other sets were built at the prison, including the cell blocks that housed the general prison population; these blocks had three tiers of cells (as opposed to the real cell block's two) and had cells much larger than real cells to allow more space for the actors and cameras. Exterior scenes were filmed in areas around

Woodstock The Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was a music festival held from August 15 to 18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, southwest of the town of Woodstock, New York, Woodstock. Billed as "a ...

, and Joliet in

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern United States. It borders on Lake Michigan to its northeast, the Mississippi River to its west, and the Wabash River, Wabash and Ohio River, Ohio rivers to its ...

. Other locations included

O'Hare International Airport Chicago O'Hare International Airport is the primary international airport serving Chicago, Illinois, United States, located on the city's Northwest Side, approximately northwest of the Chicago Loop, Loop business district. The airport is ope ...

in Chicago and

Toronto Toronto ( , locally pronounced or ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, most populous city in Canada. It is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Ontario. With a p ...

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

in Canada. ''Prison Break'' spent $2 million per episode in the state of Illinois, which cost them a total of $24 million in 2005.

Release

Critical reception

The season has a 77% rating on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, with the site's consensus stating: "''Prison Break'' is confident pulp with a crackerjack premise that spreads thinly enough to smooth over the show's more lunkheaded flourishes."

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

gave the season a score—a weighted average based on the impressions of a select 32 critical reviews—of 65. Based on its strong opening, ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' dubbed ''Prison Break'' "more intriguing than most of the new network series, and ... one of the most original" and a "suspenseful thriller", complementing its "authentic look". ''

Entertainment Weekly ''Entertainment Weekly'' (sometimes abbreviated as ''EW'') is an American online magazine, digital-only entertainment magazine based in New York City, published by Dotdash Meredith, that covers film, television, music, Broadway theatre, books, ...

'' called it an "original drama", noting the show's "edge-of-the-seat action". ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...

'' criticized the show for its "somber pretentiousness" and "uniformly overwrought erformances.

Ratings

The two-hour

pilot episode A television pilot (also known as a pilot or a pilot episode and sometimes marketed as a tele-movie) in United Kingdom and United States television, is a standalone episode of a television series that is used to sell a show to a television netwo ...

garnered approximately 10.5 million viewers, giving Fox its "best summertime Monday numbers since episodes of ''

Melrose Place ''Melrose Place'' is an American prime-time television soap opera that aired on Fox from July 8, 1992, to May 24, 1999, for seven seasons. The show follows the lives of a group of young adults living in an apartment complex in West Hollywood, ...

'' and ''

Ally McBeal ''Ally McBeal'' is an American legal comedy-drama television series created by David E. Kelley that originally aired on Fox from September 8, 1997, to May 20, 2002. It revolves around Calista Flockhart in the title role as a lawyer working ...

'' aired there in September 1998." The show's first season attracted an average audience of 10 million viewers each week, with "End of the Tunnel" reaching 12 million viewers, 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.

Home media release

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Prison Break Season 1 2005 American television seasons 2006 American television seasons Prison Break episodes Prison Break