Prison Break Reattaches to Sara

If it looks like Dr. Sara Tancredi's head in a box and people say it's her head in a box, and there's no sign of the pretty little neck it was once attached to, doesn't that mean it's Sara's head in a box?

Well, no.

They're going to have to put their heads together on this one, but producers of Prison Break confirmed Thursday that Sarah Wayne Callies, who played Michael Scofield's seemingly lost love Sara, will return for the series' fourth season—and not in a Lost, CSI: Miami or Six Feet Under kind of way.

Executive producer Matt Olmstead tells E! Online's TV blog that Callies' character is actually alive and, while not exactly well, sporting a full head of...well, that's it, a full head.

"She's the real deal," Olmstead said, adding that there will be breaks in the action to see how Sara escaped the axe. (For the second time. This was Sara's second stay of execution. She was originally headed for a season-one death via overdose, but Fox honchos objected to killing her off...and so she stayed.)

"Season four is jumping-forward, hit-the-ground-running storytelling. But we are dropping back, in flashback, and explaining how the characters got to where they are and the situation with her, certainly."

So no matter that Lincoln's son supposedly witnessed Sara's offing or that, for all intents and purposes, it really did seem as if her head was in that box. Apparently, fans still had enough loose ends left with which to weave together a new conspiracy and maintain hope that the doc was alive.

"It wasn't because of the fans that we did that, but it was the combination of the fans' reactions on the boards and emails, and people we, the writers, know personally would ask about it," Olmstead said.

"We knew internally that when we didn't get Sarah Wayne Callies to come back in season three and be there to portray her character's death, as soon as it was written and filmed and we saw it onscreen, we knew that it was actually a way you could describe how this wasn't Sara's head in the box, basically."

(Note to Gwyneth Paltrow: There's hope for your Se7en character yet.)

Prison Break's third season, which was strike-shortened to only 13 episodes, ended with Michael, revenge on his mind, driving down a Panamanian road into network uncertainty. But Fox announced earlier this week it had ordered up a full 22-episode fourth season for this fall, paving the way for a new set of problems—and, apparently, a pleasant surprise—for the steely eyed vigilante.

Cameras are set to roll on the new batch of action, which takes place in Los Angeles this season, in May.