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And so they did, taking over a shuttered penitentiary last winter. (The maximum-security Joliet Correctional Center last held convicts in 2002; an annex across the street still houses sex offenders.) The cast was in for a mood awakening — especially Purcell, fresh from Fox's campy Hawaii-set prime-time soap, North Shore. ''No waves in Joliet,'' he notes. ''A lot of waves of depression.'' Miller found the stark setting perfectly evocative, if not downright captivating. ''It can get to you after a while,'' he admits. ''I suppose if I were a Method actor, I'd have camped out here for a night or two — but to be honest, you just need five minutes and you've got the gist.'' Which is what? ''You want to be anywhere but here.''
Preview audiences, however, were more than happy to visit: Prison Break was the highest-testing pilot in Fox history, and has become one of the fall's most talked-about dramas. Granted, some talk surrounded the show's implausibilities — like how could Michael make sure he'd go to the right prison? And come to think of it, what does happen in season 2? (More on that in a moment.) New Fox Entertainment president Peter Liguori — who made Prison Break the first pickup for his 2005-06 slate — was enamored enough to overlook the fact that the series' eventual direction remained uncharted. ''Down the road I could be accused of naïveté or outright stupidity, but right now I'm enjoying the fact we don't know,'' says Liguori, noting that 24's producers had no endgame when their show launched. ''This is a challenging concept [that] doesn't conform to the overly tried-and-true recipe.''
It certainly contains the ingredients for a tantalizing start. In the first batch of episodes, Michael struggles to assemble his escape plan. Can he outmaneuver a corrupt prison guard (Wade Williams)? Can he trust a cellmate (Amaury Nolasco) who pines for his fiancée on the outside? Can he fake a serious ailment to gain access to the infirmary run by a fetching doctor (Tarzan's Sarah Wayne Callies)? Can he...survive? ''I've been threatened, shoved, punched, beaten with batteries shoved in a sock, thrown off a balcony, sexually harassed — and this is episode 1,'' says Miller. Meanwhile, Lincoln's ex-girlfriend Veronica (The Craft's Robin Tunney) stumbles into the far-reaching frame-up, which could make Watergate look like stealing from the penny dish at 7-Eleven. ''The audience and Veronica have a lot in common, because they're uncovering who's involved in the conspiracy at the same time,'' says Tunney. ''And it's heavy.'' Intricate, too. The cast — which also features Stacy Keach as the warden — will expand and contract as the saga unravels. ''There are 34 speaking parts in the pilot, and we're introducing new characters all the time,'' says Scheuring. ''People that played a tiny role at the beginning of the first season might suddenly be the biggest character in the entire thing at the end of season 2.''
Which leads us back to that nagging second-season question. Here's all Scheuring will share of his two-year blueprint: ''A lot of people are going to get out. We're going to have 10 or 12 story lines outside the walls — people going to the four corners of the country. One guy for truth, one guy for exoneration, one guy for revenge.... It's going to be epic in scope.'' Death Row Boy already has one journey mapped out. ''Maybe Lincoln and Michael go to Hawaii for a year and drink a lot of Corona,'' says Purcell. ''That would be the dream, wouldn't it?'' Here's to the guys planting their toes in the sand — at least whichever ones they have left.
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