Breaking Bad Is Story Good

rickyjames writes, Huh, who would have thought AMC on cable could produce such great sci-fi series that you’ve never even heard of? Following in the footsteps of their sort-of time travel epic Mad Men now in reruns, this week they kicked off their mad scientist show Breaking Bad. First ep last night was totally great, catch a rerun of the pilot this week and climb abord for one wild ride. Discovering his true identity under the covers with his clueless wife while using his powers of science for evil aboard his rolling secret laboratory, Walter White is my new antihero…

6 replies on “Breaking Bad Is Story Good”

  1. Sci-Fi?
    The first ep of Breaking Bd was in fact: really, really, really good … i really wish it had been on Showtime or HBO so they wouldn’t have needed to bleep anything.

    (odd side note: the show was initially bought/financed by FX who later passed on it — how was FX planning on getting away with the profanity?)

    But is Breaking Bad really SciFi? .. i mean, sure, it involves chemistry … but it’s not like there’s a freak accident and he gets super powers.

    • Re: Sci-Fi?
      I agree Breaking Bad not true mainstream sci-fi, but there are undeniably many classical sci-fi elements in this series which has the potential to be a great drama. You gotta admit, this IS a mad scientist story. For the record, the creative producer behind BB is Vince Gilligan, a long-time X-Files alum. With the writer’s strike underway, it’s gonna be a LONG year. I just wanted to submit a tip here on B52 so you all get to see some good, fresh TV entertainment while you still can…

      • Re: Sci-Fi?

        Lost wasn’t sci-fi in the beginning either. Who knows where this will go.

        Are you freaking kidding me? Something "ate" the Pilot.

        (and spit him back out)

    • Re: Sci-Fi?

      …it’s not like there’s a freak accident and he gets super powers…

      I’ve been thinking about this statement and conclude I disagree. His collapse in the car wash and subsequent trip to the ER **is** effectively a freak accident that leads directly to his decision to finally use the "super powers" he has always had due to his deaded-ended career as a chemistry teacher. You think a guy that makes perfect three-inch meth crystals and phosgene gas in ep one is gonna pick up a shovel to make the bodies disappear in ep two? Nuh-uh. This is going to be the story of how a nice guy turns not-so-slowly into a supervillain, week by week, and uses his knowledge of science to get there. The epic good-vs-evil battle is already set up with the DEA brother-in-law that looks just like Vic Mackey in The Shield / Ben Grimm in FF; I’m predicting home-grown C4 eventually gets "between" them somehow…

      What’s about to happen to Walter White (note the comic-book style alliteration and not-so-subtle symbolism) is what might well have happened to Peter Parker if the radioactive spider had never showed up. He’s going over to the Dark Side of the Force, a Hogwarts instructor of spells that gives in to greed. Talk about a horror story… after nearly three decades in various hi-tech cube farms, I’m here to tell you that Walter White is a much more likely outcome for an aging science geek than Emmitt Brown. Unfortunately.

  2. Weekday Rerun Edits
    Huh. I just watched the BB pilot again tonight with my wife (who was seeing it for the first time) and it seems the weeknight reruns of the episode are significantly edited from the Sunday night premiere in order to make room for commercials. What a shame!!! Still the same underlying story of course but it seems so much more chopppy without the extra character development scenes that were so very well done. The edited scenes together go a long way to establish Walter White as a desperate man humiliated by life. Woth checking out the pilot on iPod for the extra scenes and catching future Sunday night eps which may be routinely aired without commercials…

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