The question is, can Fox repeat this formula again and make it work again? They’re certainly giving it a try with PRISON BREAK, premiering tonight at 8. After its two-hour premiere, the show settles into its regular time next week, 9 PM on Mondays.

The premise of the show is simple—a college-educated architect orchestrates his own arrest and incarceration into a maximum security prison in Chicago in order to save his brother on Death Row, who he thinks was framed for the assassination of the vice-president’s brother (alright, maybe the premise isn’t all that simple). The premise in itself is also somewhat preposterous—Michael Scofield (Wentworth Miller, from THE HUMAN STAIN), an earnest, honest sort, attempts to rob a bank in broad daylight and because he fires his gun at the ceiling, the judge takes this first-time offender and gives him five years... in the same place where his brother's serving away the rest of his life. Although neither the warden nor anyone else at the prison seem to be aware that the two are related.

Michael's former place of employment, is also the place that helped build this prison (never mind that the prison used is the recently closed Joliet, the place from which John Belushi's character emerged at the beginning of THE BLUES BROTHERS and it looks every bit of its 100+ years old), a project Michael worked on.

So take those little details, Michael lucking into being jailed near his brother and also having an intimate knowledge of that prison's architecture, and process them, leaving your skepticism behind. If you think too much about the unlikely nature of these points, you'll end up missing out on a strong show that transcends its plot holes.

In prison, Michael meets and quickly blackmails a mobster (played by Peter Stormare, still doing that creepy thing he do so well), gets on the bad side of Stacy Keach's warden until he absolutely needs to call in a favor, gets to know an older con who mught just be legendary hijacker D.B. Cooper, and flirts with the infirmary nurse. See, Michael knows exactly what he's doing, and to whom, right from the start. And Miller has that same look of conviction that Kiefer Sutherland invests in Jack Bauer, that of someone who's always in control of every situation (although he's much more low-key about it than Jack Bauer). Michael is manipulating everyone for his own needs, and so far, doing a good job of it.

He's also still in contact with his brother Lincoln's ex, Veronica (Robin Tunney). He convinces her that his brother Lincoln was actually framed for the murder of the vice-president's brother. His plan is to bust his brother out before he's put to death, and prove the far-reaching conspiracy.

At the end of the first hour (the end of the pilot I saw--tonight's premiere is actually two hours, and was directed by Brett Ratner, but please don't hold that against it), Michael shows his brother the final piece of his plan, the prison blueprints. He found a way to sneak them into the prison, and it's a very cool visual trick.

So those are all the pieces of the show. Like I say, it all sounds more than a bit implausible. It's also maybe the best drama I've seen so far this summer, much more solid and with more potential than even the more well-done LOST clones and alien invasion shows. The pilot is also beautifully shot, with sweeping overhead shots of the prison. And TV show or not, shooting inside a place as gothically beautiful and terrible as Joliet gives it a perfectly dreary look and feel that helps further set the mood. And it's helped even more by the solid casting, from the leads to the bit players. And with hammy old pros like Stormare and Keach waiting to cut loose, you know it's only going to get better.

I know I've knocked the far-fetched shows like FAST LANE or HAWAII in the past, but those shows were all about trying to force style in our face at the expense of substance. PRISON BREAK is the opposite of that--it's all about mood and substance, which of course also makes it one of the more stylish shows of the new season. Here's hoping the ratings are good enough to deny Michael parole any time soon.