http://tv.ign.com/articles/862/862667p1.html
While the news of this is going to be all over the place with the person's name plastered on headlines, if any Prison Break fan is going to attempt to avoid the revelation about a major character's return, look away now, because it's Spoiler Warning time.
One of the most notable and talked about deaths in Prison Break history is about to be undone, as TV Guide's Michael Ausiello is reporting that Sara Wayne Callies is returning to the series in Season 4 as Dr. Sara Tancredi.
Ausiello spoke to the show's executive producer Matt Olmstead, who explains how they're going to get out of the rather major dilemma of Sarah being decapitated last season. We saw Sara's head in a box in Season 3, but Olmstead reveals "Yeah, that wasn't [her]"
Callies left the show in the midst of a pretty testy contract dispute, which turned her intended onscreen death into an off screen one and Olmstead explains "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. Lincoln glanced at the head in the box for a split second. That could've been anyone. He wasn't about to pull it up from the hair and inspect it closely. 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 [vague]. 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."
Olmstead says the often upset (and sometimes angry) response to Dr. Sara's death factored in to deciding to bring her back, explaining to Ausiello " We saw on the message boards that a lot of fans were wondering if she really was dead. And then that led to conversations of, 'Well, what if she isn't?'"
Olmstead added that "We came back after the strike and we realized that we were not going to finish Season 3... we creatively decided to blow it all out, jump forward in the timeline and get a fresh start. And so, when we pitched that, a lot of those elements remained, but we were still looking for that emotional core for Michael. We were kind of exactly where we were in the beginning of Season 3, which led to her demise, quote unquote. So we went back and revisited [the idea of bringing her back to life]. And once we started talking about it, it was mentioned again that fans are still wondering about her. 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."
Olmstead tells Ausiello that Season 4 will begin about a month after Season 3 ended and that bringing Dr. Sara back will "be about figuring out what happened to her during that mystery period [between the end of Season 3 and the start of Season 4], and how she and Michael deal with it." He also confirms Callies will be onboard for all of Season 4.