Fox springs ‘Prison Break’ for third season

LOS ANGELES — Fox has picked up the action drama “Prison Break” for a third season.

Details on the serialized drama’s story line for next season are being kept under wraps, but it is understood that brothers Michael (Wentworth Miller) and Lincoln (Dominic Purcell) — who recently escaped to Panama with the FBI hot on their trail — and many of their fellow fugitives would end up back behind bars, possibly in Panama.

“It essentially will be a new chapter,” creator/executive producer Paul Scheuring said. “It’s going to return to the fundamental conceit, to the roots of what the show was about.”

In its first season, “Break” featured most characters locked in prison and planning an escape. The current second season chronicles the manhunt that ensued after the core group broke out.

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“They got scattered in the winds,” Scheuring said. “They will come back together again, (and) their conflicts and interactions will return.”

The options on the “Break” actors are not due for a pickup until May, but it is understood that a significant number of the regulars this season will return in the fall. The show also will introduce many new characters, Scheuring said.

Slideshow: The week in celebrity sightings But while stars Miller and Purcell will return next season, don’t consider them safe, Scheuring said, hinting that one of them might not survive beyond the first few episodes.

Scheuring already has begun scouting locations for Season Three. Production will be based in Dallas. There will be splinter units working in Florida, which has doubled for Panama this year, and Louisiana, also expected to double for Panama.

In its second season, “Break” has averaged 9.1 million viewers and a 3.7 rating/10 share among adults 18-49. The series ranks No. 1 in its 8 p.m. Monday period in that coveted demographic.

“Prison Break” is the third live-action series to receive an early pickup for next season, joining the dramas “House” and “Bones.”