Prison Break revival: New trailer sets stage for 'greatest escape'

The first trailer has been unveiled for the revival of the hit TV series Prison Break, with Wentworth Miller returning to the role of Michael Scofield, this time behind bars in a foreign jail.

The new nine-episode series will be a continuation of the drama that ran for four seasons on Fox from 2005 to 2009 and revolved around two brothers, Lincoln Burrows (Dominic Purcell) and Michael Scofield. In the original series, Lincoln was sentenced to death for a crime he did not commit and structural engineering whiz Michael devises an elaborate plan to help his brother escape from jail in order to clear his name. [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"content_original","fid":"95001","attributes":{"class":"media-image"}}]]

The new series will pick up the action several years after Michael's apparent death, as clues emerge that he may still be alive in a foreign jail. Determined to solve the mystery once and for all, Michael's former love interest Sara Tancredi (Sarah Wayne Callies) and brother Lincoln reunite with former prisoners from their past to rescue him.

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The trailer shows Michael's young son quizzing his mother Sara about his dad, who apparently died when the boy was just a toddler. "What was my father like? My real father," he asks.

Sara says he was "like a storm appearing suddenly out of a clear blue sky", while flashbacks reveal them meeting back in season one when she was a prison doctor. "And then disappeared just as quickly," she says. The little boy replies: "Storms, they can come back, can't they?"

The next scene shows Theodore 'T-Bag' Bagwell (Robert Knepper) showing Lincoln a grainy photograph of Michael and saying: "Looks like your brother might just be alive." Lincoln shows the photo to Sara, who is reluctant to believe it, telling him: "I know you want it to be true – I want it to be true. But we've got to trust what we know."

As Lincoln says, "there's only one way to find out" – and so the stage is set for a new prison escape, the premise that made the first series such a hit, except that this time it's the older brother trying to help the younger escape.

"The Burrows brothers are back and badder than ever," says Justin Harp on Digital Spy. The new trailer shows Purcell and Miller mastermind their "greatest escape yet", and it is "every bit the thrill ride you'd been hoping for," says Harp.

The original series got off to "a buzzworthy start" in its first season, but after the titular prison break "the writers had trouble finding ways to keep the story moving in a compelling – and conceivable – manner", notes Adam Chitwood on Collider. But "the prospect of bringing everyone back for a new chapter is certainly enticing", he says.

Prison Break is "tailor made to be an event series", says Kevin Yeoman at Screenrant, but fan interest for the show has never waned. Fox has partly credited the series' longevity on streaming platforms like Netflix for its upcoming revival.

The new Prison Break has been conceived as finite rather than continuing, which would overcome story issues, notes Yeoman. And with its core cast returning, this "very tempting single serving" stands a good chance of being another hit.