Making a break for the hi-def border with Prison Break: Season Three

I never quite know what to make of Prison Break. The first season was entertainingly in an extremely stupid kind of way, while the second almost bored me to tears with its take on It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. However, when I caught the finale of the second season my interest suddenly spiked again. By throwing hero Michael Schofield (Wentworth Miller) behind bars in South America, the show seemed to have finally embraced its inner idiot.

As it turned out, this third season doesn't quite hit the stupendous highs (or lows) I was hoping for. Cut down from its normal 22 episode run to just 13 thanks to the 2007 writer's strike, the show hurtles through story lines with barely a moment to stop for breath. New characters are introduced. Old ones are killed off. And interesting supporting characters are sidelined in favour of spending more time on Michael's terminally uninteresting and monosyllabic brother Lincoln (Dominic Purcell). It also makes the mistake of adding yet more layers to the ongoing story arc, which I ceased caring about years ago and would prefer to see wrapped up as soon as possible. Hopefully season four can correct some of these problems and deliver a slightly more cohesive and entertaining batch of episodes, otherwise I worry that there won't be a fifth for anybody to watch.

For all of its flaws as a TV series, this third season of Prison Break looks and sounds fantastic in high definition. The South American setting has left the production team over-saturating colours and ramping up the brightness throughout the 13 episodes, and while some might not be too keen on the aesthetic choice, the 1080p AVC Blu-ray encodes replicate the source material perfectly. Like most TV material we've looked at on Blu-ray to date, the overall sharpness of the image varies slightly from shot to shot. This means that the visuals don't really have the same kind of immediate wow factor that you get from something like There Will be Blood or The Incredible Hulk, but it's great stuff nonetheless.

As usual when it comes to a 20th Century Fox Blu-ray release, the discs feature a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 soundtrack. Thankfully Prison Break features plenty of action and atmospheric audio effects, all of which come through with really dynamism in the lossless tracks. Voices are clear (if a touch too 'boomy' on a handful of occasions) and movement between the speakers feels incredibly smooth and natural.

Unfortunately the set falters when it comes to extra features. We can only presume that the limited amount of extra features stems from the same WAG strike that led to a shorter season of the show. There are no exclusive features on offer, instead you just get the same material that appeared on the earlier DVD release - with a couple of them given a hi-def makeover. Orientation is one of those to arrive in HD, but this 17min featurette quickly turns out to be an extremely dull EPK piece. Getting the same treatment is the slightly more interesting Breakout,  13min behind-the-scenes look at the making of the season's penultimate episode. Standard-definition bonus content takes the form of thirteen Director's Takes (short vignettes each focusing on a different aspect of the production) and seven short Between Takes featurettes following members of the cast around the sets.

20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, Region B Blu-ray, £50, On sale now
HCC VERDICT: 3/5