Planning for Cancellation

Is it just me, or does it seem that a lot of these much-hyped new fall shows are setting themselves up for little more than one-season orders?

There's a show coming to CBS this fall, I think, called "Prison Break." They're running the ads for it incessantly on TV. (This, meanwhile, is problematic enough, as these commercials take away from the leadening fact that THE FUTURE OF OUR WORLD DEPENDS ON JUST EXACTLY WHO WILL BECOME THE NEW LEAD SINGER OF INXS!) The plot of "Prison Break," as I understand it, involves Brother A being convicted and sent to prison for a crime he didn't commit. Brother B, some sort of prison-building-expert or something, commits a robbery on purpose in order to be sent to the same prison and help his brother hatch an elaborate escape plot.

(1) How would this guy know he'd be sent to the SAME prison? Wouldn't it suck to do the crime and then find out you're going to Utah or someplace to spend 20 years in a jail cell with a guy named Bubba Love?

(2) HOW can this show exist for more than 1 season? It's either going to be THE most elaborate prison break in the history of history (Season 1 involves 24 different attempts at sneaking a nail file into a cake,) or perhaps on each season finale they'll be re-captured and re-sent to a different prison so they can team up and do it all over again.

Oh, and there's another show -- maybe this one's coming to Fox, I don't remember -- where the show is basically a 20 year old murder mystery involving a group of friends, and apparantly every episode takes place 1 year after the previous episode. 20 episodes and you see 20 years evolve in these character's lives. It's like the anti-"24." Jack Bauer would NOT be amused.

(1) How would you like to be the makeup crew on THIS show? "Yeah, we need you to age, umm, EVERYONE in the show by 20 years. Cool?"

(2) How can THIS show exist for more than 1 season? I think it'd be great if the show gets picked up and they force the cast to evolve ANOTHER 20 years... then ANOTHER, etc., until finally it's a show about geriatrics living in the year 2050, still trying to solve the 100 year old murder while dodging flying cars and evil robots hell-bent on world destruction.

Maybe I just over-think things sometimes...