"Escape" begins much like "The Newsroom" did. Finkleman is marvelous with his dialogue. We don't have Mark Farrell or Tanya Allen anymore, but Christian Potenza and Regean Pasternak are worthwhile replacements.
The film reaches a point in which Finkelman's trademark surrealism takes over, and this film jumps into the realm of "art" rather than "entertainment", complete with a blunt damning of the whole concept of reviving this show! Unfortunately, while The Newsroom quite often provided great entertainment, the "art" that is "Escape" does not.
Escape continues the tone established by More Tears, Foolish Heart, and Foreign Objects, none of which were nearly as successful as The Newsroom was, with good reason. Dry, biting satires are wonderful if done with some entertainment value, but lose their effect when they're just downright inaccessible, as this film had become. It's hard to be entertained at jokes about people dying from Anthrax.
Things do start to make sense at the end - you realize what Finkleman wanted to say and he then returns to the same lovable humour we've come to expect from him. Now that his point has been made (roughly 10 times now, from all of his series), he can get back to writing the wonderful satire we've come to enjoy so much.
