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Breaking Bad is an American neo-Western crime drama television series created and produced by Vince Gilligan. The show aired on AMC from January 20, 2008 to September 29, 2013, consisting of five seasons for a total of 62 episodes. It was met with widespread acclaim and is widely considered to be one of the greatest TV shows of all time.
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Premise
Mild-mannered high school chemistry teacher Walter White thinks his life can't get much worse. His salary barely makes ends meet, a situation not likely to improve once his pregnant wife gives birth, and their teenage son is battling cerebral palsy. But Walter is dumbstruck when he learns he has terminal cancer. Realizing that his illness probably will ruin his family financially, Walter makes a desperate bid to earn as much money as he can in the time he has left by turning an old RV into a meth lab on wheels.
Why It's Breaking Bad (In A Great Way)
- It has an incredible and fascinating premise: a chemistry teacher who's been given a terminal diagnosis decides to create methamphetamine with one of his students.
- The goal of the show is to show the mild-mannered and highly intelligent Walter White's gradual transformation into the ruthless and calculating Heisenberg - and it accomplished this extremely well.
- Great acting, particularly from Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul, Anna Gunn, and Dean Norris.
- Well-written and likable characters, such as Hank Schrader, Saul Goodman, and Walter Jr.
- Walter White started as a high school teacher suffering from a mid-life crisis. However, as the series progresses, he goes from genuinely wanting to take care of his family to making excuses for selling drugs and abusing his power. Moreover, his numerous actions are fittingly portrayed as crimes so the audience won't follow his missteps.
- Jesse Pinkman. The master of street smarts, a man of impulse and hedonism, a skillful meth cook, a glorious lover of children and women, and the director of his new (post-Breaking Bad) life.
- To make things better, Walter and Jesse have a good relationship and chemistry.
- The cast is perfect and provides with a great depth of character to play on.
- The villains in the show are very memorable and scary:
- Krazy-8 sets Walter on the path to becoming Heisenberg.
- Tuco Salamanca is a very dangerous and psychopathic drug dealer.
- The Salamanca cousins do everything together and rarely talk. If they have a goal in mind, they achieve it without hesitation, regardless of how many people must die.
- Hector Salamanca may look like a helpless, wheelchair-bound old man, but he's the leader of the Salamanca drug business and tries to start things peacefully until he resorts to violence.
- Gustavo Fring is a seemingly genial businessman who lives a double life as a drug kingpin and loves to hurt his enemies personally, even if it means killing children.
- "Uncle" Jack Welker is the sociopathic leader of a criminal gang with white supremacist/neo-Nazi ideologies.
- Todd Alquist, "Uncle" Jack's nephew, may look like a nice person but is willing to do anything to accomplish his twisted goals - even murdering a little boy just being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
- It has more impeccable narration and more deeply invested serialization than most of its contemporaries.
- The plot is very well-tied.
- Good product placement for the Pontiac Aztek, which was marketed by General Motors and also a massive commercial failure and had been regarded as one of the worst cars ever made.
- It leaves behind a legacy of great episodic storytelling in the history of the medium.
- The treatment of violence is so subtle.
- The series finale, Felina, didn't completely ruin the show (unlike other shows that did exactly that) and is considered to be one of the greatest series finales of all time.
- It spawned a phenomenal prequel/spin-off, Better Call Saul, and a film, El Camino, which takes place after the original series.
- The show has many parallel moments that connect with each other.
- Very intense moments which keep the audience incredibly engaged.
- This show has an incredibly large fanbase, including a subreddit with over 1.5 million subscribers.
- Both Walter White and Jesse Pinkman's clothes are extremely fashionable, well-done, and downright inspiring.
- Great backstories that make you feel for the characters.
Bad Qualities
- Some of the characters, most notably Skyler, can be pretty unlikable at times.
- Some would classify the episode "Fly" as pointless filler, even if it did explore Walter and Jesse more and was made after the show went over budget. Overall, it's a matter of perspective given how many fans think it's either one of the best or worst episodes.
- Earlier versions of Breaking Bad on DVD suffered from censorship, where strong language and nudity were censored. Thankfully, later versions of the DVD had it completely uncensored.
- The Amazon version, however, is still censored.
Reception
The first season of Breaking Bad received positive reviews, while the rest of the seasons received universal acclaim from both critics and audiences alike. The show is widely considered one of the greatest and most influential TV shows of all time. It was one of the highest-rated and most acclaimed shows on television throughout its run. Overall, the show has a 96% critic rating and a 97% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes. On IMDb, the show has a 9.4/10. On Metacritic, the show has a critic rating of 87%, indicating "Universal Acclaim", and a user score of 9.2, also indicating "Universal Acclaim". The show's fifth and final season is currently one of the highest rated shows/seasons on Metacritic, alongside the fourth season of Rectify, the fourth and sixth seasons of The Larry Sanders Show and the first season of Murder One, with a 99.