Wentworth Miller in the third season of Prison Break.

If you listen to Wentworth Miller, the return of Prison Break tonight should be airing on the Animal Planet network.

"Part of Prison Break's winning formula is what happens if you stick a bunch of alpha dogs in a box and shake it," Miller said.

Hey, isn't that why Michael Vick is going to jail?

But seriously, Miller, who plays Michael Scofield on Prison Break, was not speaking about a box of dogs in the literal sense.

"The tighter, more confined that box is, the better," said Miller, referring to the close quarters -- both physically and psychologically speaking -- between the main cast members on Prison Break, which begins its third season tonight on Fox and Global.

"I like getting up in Bill Fichtner's face (Fichtner plays Alexander Mahone). I like getting up in Rob Knepper's face (Knepper plays Theodore Bagwell, a.k.a. T-Bag). I think it makes for great TV and it's a lot of fun for me as an actor."

Miller said the third season of Prison Break will be about his character, Michael, and Lincoln Burrows (played by Dominic Purcell) trying to survive as pawns in a large and deadly game of chess.

"I honestly can say the episodes we've just shot are among the best so far," said the 35-year-old Miller, who was born in England and raised in Brooklyn. "It's just as intense and gritty and claustrophobic as the first season, except this time we don't have to lay out all that back story.

"You know who these characters are. You know what they want. You know where they're going. That means we can hit the ground running, and I think we have."

Since the first season of Prison Break, people have been wondering how long the creators would be able to keep the plot moving forward. After all, the main characters already have broken out of their original prison.

"The success of Prison Break is a testament to the kind of stories that are being told successfully on television today," said Miller, a graduate of Princeton. "We have audiences who are willing to invest in complex, complicated stories that unfold over not just episodes, but seasons, and are willing to hang in there for the long haul. It's for them that we bust our humps each and every day."

Did Wentworth Miller just say that TV audiences are smarter than everyone thinks? God bless the man!

"The good news for a show like Prison Break is it's not a procedural drama," said Miller, taking a veiled shot at the CSI model and its countless imitators. "It's not a show where the only thing different from episode to episode is how the victim was murdered.

"We've managed to create a pretty complex, fantastic universe with a lot of moving parts, a lot of different stories, all of them worth exploring. As far as this thing continuing for nine or 10 seasons like a Friends or a CSI, I'm not sure we'll go that far. But I do think we have at least another two or three seasons in us."

So over the long haul on Prison Break, is Miller's character going to wind up being a good guy or a bad guy?

"I still believe Michael is a good man on a hero's journey, but his hands are filthy," Miller said. "And the question becomes, how far across the line can a good man go before you no longer can call him good?"

Just to be clear, Wentworth Miller was talking about Michael Scofield, not Michael Vick.

Also debuting tonight: K-Ville (Fox, E!). This new, clunky, exploitative cop drama is set in New Orleans, which already has suffered enough, don't you think?