8 Alternate TV Endings Much Better Than What We Got

A sixth season of Prison Break hasn't been greenlit yet, so the ninth episode of this year's event series is the ending of the story as things stand, and it was almost a very different one to the upbeat conclusion which aired.

The long-awaited fifth season delivered a happy ending, with Michael Scofield returning to a normal life with Sara Tancredi and their son Mike.

Some fans questioned how Michael, after everything he'd been through, could ever find normality and settle into family life, and it seems show boss Paul Scheuring also pondered this question and originally planned to dish out an open conclusion.

He told Entertainment Weekly...

"The idea was Michael comes back and he's apparently got a normal life, but with that comes a creeping paranoia that things can't stay good like this. Unfortunately, that's not on screen, but the idea is that he's always going to be looking over his shoulder.

"There was a scripted page where they said, 'Michael, you can stop looking over your shoulder now. You're free', but then he looks over his shoulder and you can see the whole world out there and all the people in the park and everything, and any one of them might be a threat, and you realise that a man like this could never go back to a normal life – but again, that didn't end up happening exactly how we wanted it, so this is what we got on film."

The difference between this ending and the one which aired is tone, and there's an argument that Prison Break should have brought the curtain down with a heavier dose of paranoia, which would have been more in keeping with the last season.

Closing things down on an unsettling note would also have made a sixth season a stronger possibility. If the show was to return for more episodes, it will do so at the expense of a happy ending, and that seems like a shame.