Fox was still looking for that emotional hook. I understood where she was coming from in that she was given a provisional assurance that she was going to be a part of Season 3, but we had to revisit Season 3 a couple of times in the pitch stage in order to get it picked up. And when people who are fans of the show - and of Sarah - are asking, 'Is she really dead?', what they're saying, essentially, is, 'I hope she's not dead.' And then it became a kind of groundswell.īut then you have to get the actress to agree to return, which I assume was no easy task given the bad blood that seemed to exist last season. And once we started talking about it, it was mentioned again that fans are We were kind of exactly where we were in the beginning of Season 3, which led to her demise, quote unquote. And so, when we pitched that, a lot of those elements remained, but we were still looking for that emotional core for Michael. we creatively decided to blow it all out, jump forward in the timeline and get a fresh start. And then when we came back after the strike and we realized that we were not going to finish Season 3. Isn't?' But then we put that on the back burner and moved forward with what we had to do, because it wasn't anything that could be dealt with right then. And then that led to conversations of, 'Well, what if she We saw on the message boards that a lot of fans were wondering if she really was dead.

But we felt that if we're going to lose that character, why not get the most drama out of it? We didn't look at it in terms of trying to tell the audience to go, you know, do something to themselves. Certainly, we could have put her on a cruise ship and she's off sailing away. But also, what were we really going to do? Were we going to see Sarah Wayne Callies tied to a chair for 13 episodes? And then if she broke free, what is she really doing? It was almost a disservice to that character to keep her around last season. It also gave us a couple of episodes where Lincoln withheld the information from Michael, and that gave us conflict with the brothers. Obviously they were now capable of killing somebody. I don't think it was unfair, because it gave us some real juice storytelling-wise - it put teeth in the antagonists. Sara - to jerk them around like this? They had every reason to believe she was dead. It really gave us a real push for the season.ĭon't you think that was a little unfair to the audience - particularly fans of Dr. Which was: she's out of the picture, Michael's and Lincoln is freaking out because if they did that to But initially when we realized that we never actually saw the character get killed, we just had that knowledge in our back pocket and moved forward with the narrative as we intended. And then we were fairly careful thereafter of references we made to that and who took credit for it and what was seen or heard, and we left it fairly. He wasn't about to pull it up from the hair and inspect it closely. Lincoln glanced at the head in the box for a split second. once we realized that the emotional hook of Season 3 was going to be the death of Sara, when we didn't get the actress to do it, as soon as we wrote it and shot it, we realized that there was actually a way she could still be alive. I take it that wasn't Sara's head in that box.īut initially it was supposed to be her head. Answer Man (aka executive producer Matt Olmstead). Ugly contract dispute with producers led to her apparent decapitation last October - is returning next season. Prison Break fans, prepare to seriously lose your heads. I take it that wasn't Sara's head in that box.Matt Olmstead: Yeah, that wasn't.But initially it was supposed to be her head. Seriously.How? Why? When? WTF?! All legitimate questions. Sarah Wayne Callies — whose rather ugly contract dispute with producers led to her apparent decapitation last October — is returning next season.

Prison Break Stunner: Sarah Wayne Callies Returns!

Prison break season 3 sara