Prison Break: The Final Break Blu-ray: Review By Mushy

For some reason Fox has seen fit to release the most unbelievable episode of their most unbelievable show on Blu-ray disc. Now before all the Prison Break fans get on my case for harshly criticizing the Prison Break: The Final Break Blu-ray disc, you must understand that I was never onboard with this show. This whole idea that a guy could put a tattoo on his body that features a plan to escape from prison is ludicrous. That he could get sent to the same jail as his brother and that they could escape is utterly preposterous. Then, they start breaking into jails well... you get the picture.

In Prison Break: The Final Break Michael Scofield is now quite adept at alluding the Federal government. So the government trades up and arrests Sara, Michael's girlfriend. Now he has to break into another prison that houses only women. With all of these other factors now playing into Michael's actions (a price on Sara's head, the fact that she's carrying his child), he knows that he doesn't have much time. So he enlists some of the baddest baddies that he possibly can and sets about springing the woman he loves.

Now, I have not made up any of that... that is the plot of the final episode of this show. Wow!

Deleted Scenes

These are an assortment of scenes from the final episode of this show. They don't really do much to illuminate the characters and the story (which probably explains why they were cut), but I am sure that fans will be happy to have these things. The fact that they look really good (although I am not sure if they are in High Definition), is also one of the few feathers in this releases cap.

Widescreen - 1.78:1. 25GB Single Layer. AVC @ 27 MBPS. Despite how lame I think releasing one episode is, I do think that this one episode looks nice on this release. This show has all the room that it needs to breath on Blu-ray and because of that it looks breathtaking. There is a rich amount of colors displayed across this whole show, with the blues and greens really showcasing themselves on this release. I liked how both the interior and the exterior shots didn't contrast one another. Also, Fox has transferred this footage in such a way that nothing seems like it got overly baked in the transition process.

English - 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio. Close Captioned. English SDH. Subtitled in Spanish, French, Cantonese, Mandarin, Korean, Thai and Portuguese. The audio on this release was solid. As I got to watch the proceedings on Blu-ray disc with a really nice sound system, every aspect of the audio felt heightened. I really felt like I was surrounded by the sound design. The music had a real punch to it and because of that I heard everything bigger, and all the smaller nuances were magnified as well.

The main actors of this final episode are shown on this front cover in a design that tries to convey how they are linked. In the background is the shadow of the door of a prison cell. The back features 6 images from the show (some of which are promo shots), a description of what this show is about, a Special Features listing and technical specs.

Okay, why in the world did Fox just release this final episode of Prison Break? More to the point, why did they release it on Blu-ray? With this country in a recession, with everybody tightening their belts the way have, why in the world would this company release this one episode on Blu-ray? Furthermore, with all the space that this technology affords, why would they not release it with more bells and whistles?

The brains behind these sorts of things confound me.

I will say that if you are a fan of this show you will be happy to have this release on DVD. Maybe it can be seen as a collector's item? I just don't know why, if you were already collecting this show, you would want to buy this disc separately, rather than obtain the whole set?