The TV Zone

Well, that, as we say, is that: "Prison Break" will end in May, forever, while the final episodes will begin to air on Friday, April 17. Fox announced this minutes ago at the TV Critics tour out in Universal City (I'm not there because I heard the weather was going to be warm, and I'd much rather be in the minus 5 we're about to be frozen solid by.)

Is this ending a surprise? Ha! You're kidding, right? I've lost count of all the major character departures, and the buzz on "Break" is so low that it sounds like a beehive in the dead of winter. (Although I read somewhere that Stephen King was the biggest fan in the world, so what do I know.) The end was expected. Really expected. We'll learn in a little while whether Fox will add to its original 22-ep order just to wrap things up.

Yeah, that's Wentworth Miller, at the end of season three, looking to the future, which now seems very very tenuous. The big headline in a Hollywood Reporter story this morning is that "Prison Break" is over, and if you look at the numbers (see the jump), then it's not terribly shocking - just shocking that a show with a global cult following should face cancellation after only four (four!) seasons.

If I've got my arithmetic right, Fox originally ordered a full 22 episodes for the season, but when the '09 mid-season lineup was announced, the network was suspiciously quiet about the show, which conceivably could step in if something like "Dollhouse" flounders (for example.)

To fans, this suggests that the full order won't be produced at all. The HR piece says the show just got notification that the network wants two additional episodes only, with the implication that those will be a two-hour finale. I'm pretty certain "PB" has produced enough episodes already to close out this year - 2008 - but it's '09 that remains the big mystery.

Strange: Though I'm not a big "PB" watcher by any means, I know people who are and the sense from them is that this has been a perfectly fine season; I believe even Stephen King also weighed in on his "EW" column, saying how it had become some sort of TV addiction for him...

Meanwhile, here's a quick clip of next week's "Quiet Riot." Enjoy it while you can...

And as mentioned, go to the jump for last week's top 100 shows; scroll down, waaaay down, for "PB," which I'll mark...

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