Entertainment

Bald imitation

When they give out the Emmy’s next year, I can only pray there’s a category for “Most Unoriginal Drama or Action Series,” because for once I can predict a winner.

Breakout Kings” is not only dumb and mind-numbingly silly, but what makes it all-the-more terrible is that all this silliness has been stolen from other mind-numbingly-silly shows.

Here, two US Marshals — Charlie DuChamp (Laz Alonzo) and Ray Zanvanelli (Domenick Lombardozzi) — get together to formulate Ray’s plan of using hardened, escape-artist convicts to catch hardened, escaped criminals. Aside from the “Get Out of Jail” card the convicts get while they are “on the job,” the big payoff for them is that for each escapee they catch, they get a month off their sentences. I swear.

Wait! Is it “The Dirty Dozen?” No, it’s “White Collar“! No, it’s “Prison Break“! No — it’s all of them and every other cop show/movie you’ve ever seen — and less.

Here, we learn that Ray, who is himself in a halfway house for stealing, is nonetheless still a Marshal who remains a rogue who doesn’t live by the rules. Not that again! He’s still allowed to chase the bad guys, but he’s forced to work with Charlie, a by-the-book cop. Yes, that again!

Ray has this idea it takes a thief to find a thief. Wait! Wasn’t that a movie? To that end, he recruits a convict/doctor (Jimmi Simpson, the intern on “Late Show with David Letterman“) and a gangbanger (Shea Daniels).

They’re joined by a gorgeous con artist who also happens to be Miss Idaho (Nicole Steinwedell). She must also be an escape artist, because in the next episode, she’s been mysteriously replaced by another actress.

While these are the most dangerous of escape artist criminals, everyone trusts them not to escape again — but to do the right thing and capture the other bad guys.

Wait! Wasn’t that a movie?