“Prison Break” aspires to be a cross between “24” and “Oz,” a noble intention in an industry where most producers consider “The King of Queens” to be the apex of creative endeavor. It’s a series that could take 100 episodes to solve, or 10; these days, it’s common for a show not to tip its hand too clearly, hoping to hook viewers with the visceral pleasure of a long-term mystery. This gambit has paid off for shows like “Lost” and “24,” and may well work in this show about prisoners at a maximum-security facility in Joliet, Ill., who are planning an escape – maybe they’ll sneak out next May, but who knows?

Probably not Brett Ratner, the successful feature director, who seems far more comfortable in the television format than he did with “Red Dragon,” his lugubrious adaptation of the most recent Hannibal Lecter novel for the screen. His movies make money, but they don’t make your heart thump with fear. Mr. Ratner is a master of stating the obvious, and that makes him perfect for a medium whose audience tends to take frequent trips to the refrigerator and the bathroom. Don’t worry, you can miss 10 minutes of “Prison Break” (which debuts next Monday at 8 p.m.) and not fear that you’ll never catch up. This marks a pleasant shift from the convoluted plotting of procedural dramas like “C.S.I.” and “Without a Trace,” and proves reason enough to watch a few episodes, at least – although I’m ready to lose the subplot about origami ducks by Episode 2.

At the heart of “Prison Break” is an endearing but implausible family story: An ordinary man named Michael Scofield commits a bank robbery just so he can land in jail with his brother, Lincoln Burrows, who’s facing a death sentence for having killed the vice president’s brother. Information is scarce; the pilot episode offers none on why the brothers have different last names or, for that matter, why anyone would care so much about the vice president’s brother. (In case you were wondering: Dick Cheney has a brother named Bob, about whom there is a mysterious lack of information on the Internet.) With its unresolved subplots about other oddball characters – including a prisoner at Joliet who may or may not be the famed disappearing hijacker D.B. Cooper – “Prison Break” operates from the confident position that you will be coming back for more.

If only the central performance came from an actor of more substance than Wentworth Miller, who plays Michael Scofield as a brooding male model. If Fox shows have a consistent weakness, it’s in their myopic casting for looks over substance and talent. Kiefer Sutherland was a bold and smart choice for “24,” and it’s hard to believe there wasn’t anyone that interesting available for “Prison Break.” Everyone here is too consistently gorgeous to be believed – except for the bad guys, who practically twirl their oily mustaches on this series. It’s cast like a cartoon, and that’s a shame for show with this much potential.

Undoubtedly “Prison Break” will be contrasted with “Oz,” the adult themed HBO character drama set behind bars at Oswald State Correctional Facility. The tough-guy poetry of creator Tom Fontana made “Oz” one of television’s most perversely watchable shows when it debuted in 1997. There’s nothing in this new series that matches that show’s grisly realism – not that it doesn’t allude to it. The first scene of the “Prison Break” pilot shows Michael getting a massive body tattoo, echoing the opening credit sequence of “Oz,” which showed a tattoo being burned into a man’s skin. (In an uncredited performance, that was Mr. Fontana’s arm, getting a real tattoo.)

There’s nothing wrong with working the associations we all have to classic prison stories. There are reminders here of “The Great Escape” and even of my personal favorite, Woody Allen’s “Take the Money and Run.” But “Prison Break” only has a chance to be a great prison story for this generation if it finds a fresh way to tell it. Right now it’s relying too much on the cliches that define the genre; it needs a tone of its own. Maybe when Brett Ratner returns to mediocre moviemaking and leaves “Prison Break” in the hands of a true storyteller, the series will take off.

***

I’ve been enjoying “Slings & Arrows,” the new comedy import from Canada on the Sundance Channel; it’s funny without being desperate for laughs. Set in the world of a struggling regional Shakespeare theater company, it boasts the prescient casting of Rachel McAdams in a central role; she’s the female lead of “Wedding Crashers” and “Red Eye,” and presumably no longer available for television parts.

I still wonder exactly how to define the Sundance Channel’s mission by its programming – the last show I remember watching regularly there was the “Tanner on Tanner” pseudo-documentary from last season. If “Slings & Arrows” (airing Sunday nights at 8 p.m.) represents its mission for the future, then the Sundance Channel has solved its identity crisis; this sort of witty and intelligent comedy never lasts long on a network, and deserves a chance on cable, where it can find an audience. Too bad it only has six episodes to make its case.