PRISON BREAK'S BIGGEST PROBLEM

The first season of Prison Break is remembered so fondly because it had one of the cleanest TV concepts ever created. A structural engineer gets himself sent to prison so he can break his innocent brother out. Every episode moved the plan forward. Every setback mattered. Every character had a role in the escape. Then they escaped. Which sounds ridiculous to say, but that became the problem. The show delivered exactly what audiences wanted, then had to spend another several seasons inventing reasons for everyone to end up back in prison, on the run, dead, alive again or caught in another conspiracy. Most TV shows slowly lose the plot. Prison Break's problem was that it finished the plot and then kept going.