TV Review: Prison Break - "Blow Out" Saved by William Fichtner's Acting - Page 2

It’s not that Miller is a bad actor. He isn’t. It’s just that Miller is an average TV actor. He doesn’t have miles on his range of portraying emotions and displaying facial expressions; instead he only has centimeters of range to offer instead. As noted before, Miller commands the screen beautifully when he plays anger or sadness, it's the in-between ordinary moments that he has trouble expressing effectively enough.

For the most part in this episode, Miller isn’t able to add any layers or color to Scofield being conflicted over getting Mahone out of jail or leaving him to rot in there (which would have been the perfect opportunity for any able thespian to show their range and color their performance) or even when Scofield talks to Mahone on the phone and is asked to do a favor. All we get from Miller are bland, two-note expressions, which to a certain degree is fine for television acting; however, next to someone as formidable as Fichtner, it makes Miller stand out all the more as an actor who is impaired by his own finite ability.

Having said that though, in some episodes of season three, Miller did endeavor to showcase better acting as he infused more layering into Scofield’s “ordinary” moments, with subtle but varied facial expressions. In this season, and in particular this episode, he seems to have lost either the ability to do what he did in the past, or the inclination to do so anymore. Either way, Miller came across as noticeably “ordinary” next to Fichtner this week.

It has to be noted that it's just his luck (and Miller's bad luck) that Dominic Purcell (who plays Lincoln) never found himself interacting with Fichtner's character in this episode, as Purcell would've found it even more difficult than Miller to match Fichtner's stature as an actor. It is to Fichtner's credit that he stands out week after week, head and shoulders above the two main leads of this series, since it's so rare to find a supporting actor in a television program stealing the show (and thunder) from the main stars.

Another actor who also was struggling this week in this episode was Jodi Lyn O’Keefe, who portrays Gretchen Morgan. Where Miller is an average TV actor capable of sometimes exceptional performances, O’Keefe has always been the over-acting, scenery-chewing actress who falls far below the average standard of TV acting.
O’Keefe plays some scenes in a standard acceptable fashion, and other times she plays  in an over-exaggerated, over the top, cringe-worthy way. In this episode though, her character Gretchen is given some emotional depth by introducing a daughter and sister into her story. Given O’Keefe’s strong limitations in the acting department, adding this additional scope to the character only served to burden the actress playing her and enhance the fact that this actress doesn’t have the nuance, subtlety, or capability to play such a multi-dimensional character. O’Keefe was thus not able to deliver in the soft toned scenes convincingly at all.

Article Author: Sharmila

Sharmila is a university professor who teaches Communications and Journalism at various universities, and is currently in the midst of completing her Phd in English. Sharmila started writing professionally at 12, becoming a full fledged reporter at …

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