A Comparison of Lorenzo Carceterra Book Apache and The Prison Break Television Series

When I was growing up, I would be reading large chapter books, quite large compared to my age, but I would also like to watch television. Yet my mother would caution me that the television set was no good, and now that I am a college student of legal age and on my own, she still claims that television is nothing but harmful trash. I seem to differ to what my mother has to say. Lorenzo Carceterra, the author of one of my favorite books Apaches, uses this technique where he introduces a character in one chapter, then the next chapter would be a whole different character, and toward the last few chapters of the book, he merges all characters and their stories for the finish. I see similarities in this book with a television show I have watched called Prison Break. The television series Prison Break is based on two brothers’ struggle behind bars and their plan to escape. The mastermind of this breakout, Michael Scofield manages to associate himself with numerous people as the series carry on. Can a television show enlighten the viewer just as a book would the reader? Michael Scofield’s relationships with other characters are vital in building the viewer’s ability to fuse material from multiple storylines because these intricate relationships make the viewer examine how each storyline is integrated into the plot.

In this television show, Paul Scheuring, the producer of this television series, creates this character to be like a gravitational force, pulling together all minor characters and maintaining a relationship and creating his own storyline with each one of them. In Episode One of Season One of Prison Break, Michael Scofield’s first few hours in jail, he is taken on a tour by his cellmate Sucre. They are seen in the open courtyard of the prison and are surrounded by other prisoners as Sucre points out who is who amongst the criminals and who owns what when it comes to resources. He does show interest in particular prisoners, for instance take a look at this excerpt of the episode, where Sucre and Scofield are still in the courtyard, and Scofield approaches Sucre,

Michael: I’m lookin for someone. Lincoln Burrows.

[Shot of Lincoln crouching on the other side of the chain linked fence. Michael and Sucre lean on the fence.]

Sucre: Man killed the Vice President’s brother. In a month he’s getting the chair, which means no one up this river is more dangerous than him cause he’s got nothin to lose now. What are they going to do? Kill him twice?

Michael: Is there a way I can get to him?

Sucre: The only time those boys get out is for chapel and Prison Industry. Why do you want to see Burrows so bad anyways?

Michael: Because he’s my brother.

[Sucre gives him a second glance as Michael moves away from the fence.]

Scheuring is quick to introduce Scofield in this first episode and the show has barely started. Scofield however was a very successful Structural Engineer with a clean criminal record until he committed attempted robbery and was armed for money he didn’t need, just to land in jail behind the Fox River Penitentiary walls afterwards. You can now see the particular prisoners Scofield was interested in, turns out not to be just any other but his brother. Not only does Scofiled’s relation with Lincoln Burrows complicate the storyline already, but also what I am questioning here as a viewer, as to what was the motive for Burrows to kill the Vice President’s brother and not ending there, but as to why as well does Scofield plan on breaking out with his brother Burrows, who committed a crime which placed him on death row. With the Scofield proposing these relationships among the characters, as a viewer it is crucial that we examine these relationships in order to keep up with the plot as a whole.

The question is why do Scofield’s relationships propose to us viewers to examine them and how they relate individually to the plot? Here I approach this question with Steven Johnson’s words in his essay “Watching TV Makes You Smarter”, as follows, “Think of the cognitive benefits conventionally ascribed to reading: attention, patience, retention, the parsing of narrative threads. Over the last half-century, programming on TV has increased the demands it places on precisely these mental faculties” (Johnson 280). Johnson compares reading and programming on television and how they both have “cognitive benefits” for the viewer and reader. Examining these relationships in this television series improves the mental capacities of the viewer just as you would improve your mental capacities while reading. Referring back to my example of the book in the beginning of this paper, as well as the script that was provided above, Lorenzo Carceterra and Michael Scofield both situate their storylines to a point where it gets complicated and scattered which triggers the brain to work a little harder to process what is going on and letting the viewer engage as to how each storyline relates to another.

Michael Scofield is looked at just as Lorenzo Carceterra is, for they both are creating these storylines, weaving them together, causing them to meet at one point, or fade into another episode or even create a whole new storyline. Again I bring Johnson’s words to play, in his essay “Watching TV Makes You Smarter”, with him referring to another television series, Hill Street Blues, “The number of primary characters—and not just bit parts—swells significantly. And the episode has fuzzy borders: picking up one or two threads from previous episodes at the outset and leaving one or two threads open at the end” (Johnson 281). In this episode of Hill Street Blues, Johnson implies that the episode consists of distinct storylines, and multiple minor characters that they do exactly what I have proposed of what Scofield does in Prison Break. With this technique, viewers could easily shift from examining distinctive strands or storylines, to putting them all together, fusing them with one another making up the plot and finally make reason of why Scofield’s intricate relationships were crucial for this linkage of each respective storyline. Therefore since Scofield’s relationships make the viewer examine how each storyline is integrated into the plot, and since having the viewer examines these storylines and their contribution to the plot, Scofield’s intricate relationships are indeed, vital in building the viewer’s ability to fuse material from multiple storylines.

However it may seem that, like Dana Stevens argues in her essay, “Thinking Outside The Idiot Box”, there is disagreement within this topic. Stevens is doubting what Johnson had to say and refers to 24, a television show Johnson once makes reference to as well, “It’s really good at teaching you to think… about future episodes of 24” (Stevens 296). Stevens continues to doubt that television is something helping the viewer with their thinking abilities outside in the real world, but rather it is a source of ignorance for the viewer, and only aiding the viewer in future incidents within the television show alone. Here I feel Stevens and my mother, see eye to eye regarding this topic. I argue that Stevens’ claims (and my mother’s beliefs) are true and yet false at the same time. I do agree that television shows such as 24 or Prison Break do help audiences think of future episodes but it sure does not end there. It does aid the brain in, let’s say for example, making that link of Storyline A to Storyline B, and Storyline B to Storyline A, and linking them both to the bigger picture of the show’s plot in a manner not so simple that it would take recall of the past incidents to make the connections and relations logic; improving the mental capacities of the viewer.

To conclude, skills obtained by simply watching a television show, like Prison Break, 24, or Hill Street Blues, will benefit the viewer as equally as it is to read a book. The television set may be seen as another skill building source, one of which is least expected, one of which will still be argued against, and one of which my mother will still I believe, not agree with. However, this small portion of Popular Culture may seem out of place in regards to education and academics, but it has helped build a more intellectual perspective of this certain topic of television shows and their storylines and has opened eyes, to a new field of possible development of the acceptance of Popular Culture.