Is Breaking Bad really the best show ever?

Cafe Society
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Six Feet Under and the Wire are better, or at least more layered due to sheer amount of characters and interwoven plot threads. They probably say more about human nature and “important issues” too, if you want to be pretentious. Breaking Bad is damned fine entertainment though. It expertly builds and releases tension and always keeps you guessing. On the popcorn scale it’s way up there. Might lose some of that effect when you can just barrel through them all instead of having to wait.

Both The Sopranos and Breaking Bad have one thing in common – dull family scenes. Carmela and Skyler should mud wrassle. I’d like to see Walt Jr. kick AJ’s ass. Beat him down with those crutches.

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It does for me. :stuck_out_tongue: If someone can watch enough of it to give it a fair chance (more than just the pilot), and not appreciate the incredible quality of the artistry, from the writing and directing to the beyond stellar acting performances, I just can’t bring myself to respect them as a person. It doesn’t have to be their favorite (which is basically synonymous with “best”, as put in the OP - I mean who is going to say “X was technically the best show ever but not my personal favorite”?), but if they are saying they actually disliked it or didn’t find it compelling, I cannot even fathom what sort of alien mechanisms must be at work in their brain. It signifies a severe lack of ability to distinguish quality, and that disturbs me. I mean how could someone seriously think to themselves “BB sucked but CSI: Miami, now that’s brilliant television!”? There has to be some fundamental flaw there.

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I say that kind of thing all the time.

I understand that Brahms is an excellent composer, but he still bores me to death. I know that a lot of jazz involves technical brilliance on a level that should blow anyone’s mind, but I still don’t particularly like jazz. I know that Citizen Kane is probably the best movie ever made, but you still can’t make me watch it again unless you pay me. I know that oranges are good for you and full of vitamins, but I still prefer apples (not to mention chocolate chip cookies).

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Get ready :).

I watched the first season. It wasn’t bad, but there were enough jarringly off moments for me (the handjob in the pilot, the explosive fake meth in a later episode) that overall I didn’t think the show really worked, and I’ve never been compelled to return to it. I liked it slightly better than Sons of Anarchy.

For good shows, I’d list:
-Deadwood. Damn, but I love the cadence of that show.
-The Wire. Incredible storytelling.
-Rome. Best historical fiction I’ve seen, except possibly Deadwood.

All of these are streets ahead of Breaking Bad, IMO.

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Nope. The BEST tv show has to be a comedy; otherwise, it’s disqualified.

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I think I said somewhere that Breaking Bad is a machine for creating interpretation. And if I didn’t, I’m saying it now. That’s what I like the most about it. I can talk about it endlessly, and it never gets boring.

And it often leads to my favorite kind of SDMB discussion: One where I can disagree completely with someone, without either of us being wrong. Instead, our opposing viewpoints complement and play off each other. Nothing is more fun for me than posting some overly long argument about what makes Walt tick (or Jesse, or Todd, or Mike), and have another poster come back with a completely different perspective. Because I so often agree with that perspective, too. It’s an endless dance of never completely figuring a character out.

Try doing that with CSI:Miami, or Game of Thrones, or even The Wire. Yeah, I didn’t think so. You’ll run out of perspectives a whole lot sooner.

Another reason I like it so much has to do with my particular personality and my situation in life. Like Walter White, I’m white, male, middle-class, middle-aged, with a sense of wasted potential, a lot of anger issues, and some vaguely formulated revenge fantasies. The show is very much a cathartic experience for me.

But I know people, including my best friends and people whose opinions I respect the most, who aren’t tuned into those channels at all. Endless character analysis isn’t their idea of fun, and they’re not part of the male, middle-aged revenge-seeking demographic. If they watch the entire show and say “CSI:Miami” is better written than this, then, yes, I’ll start wondering about them. Because BB is, objectively, amazingly written. But if they say “I’m bored, let’s watch the Simpsons”, then, sure, I’m cool with that.

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But… BB *is *a comedy, a lot of the time. Among other things. It’s often very, very funny.

Although, then again, I’m Scandinavian, so my taste in comedy may be a bit on the dark side compared to some of you guys.

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Out of curiosity, are all these characters also white men with shaky ethical systems?

One thing I remember about the first season was thinking that the wife character was not very interesting at all, and the only nonwhite people on the show were caricature thugs. Does the show ever get interesting female or nonwhite characters?

Compare to The Wire, with plenty of nonwhite and female awesome characters; to Rome with lots of interesting female characters (not so many nonwhite, at least to modern eyes); to Deadwood, with mostly white characters but a few interesting nonwhite ones and definitely interesting women.

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Personally, I’d find the first episode far better than the meandering crap that was Lost and the cartoon that was Dexter. However, the first season is weak compared to the rest.

I think anyone has be deluded to claim Simpsons to be greatest ever with its, at least, 12 seasons of utter crap. I didn’t care enough to restart watching it after Season 19, when they claimed to have noticed, I saw a few and laughed a bit at some, but it was no Simpsons season 1-7.

Clue is in the name. It’s ‘Breaking’ bad. He’s good at first, so just the start of the journey…

Personally I thought it was an excellent pilot, but I suppose I have seen it about 4 times…

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The first season was probably my least favourite; they hadn’t quite settled on the tone of the show at that point (IMO).

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The Sopranos had Janice, but BB upped the boring character count with Skylar, Walt Jr., and Marie.

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Yes.

It does, to an extent. Skyler certainly gets a lot more interesting as the show goes on, and other strong female characters do show up (Jane and Lydia certainly count). And Gus Fring, who IMO is as interesting as any other character on the show, is not particularly white. But if I were to criticize the show, that’s the first criticism that comes to mind: It’s very white male centered, indeed. It certainly doesn’t particularly bother with a PC rainbow cast, or a feminist or minority perspective, for the sake of having one.

The same goes for a lot of Fellini movies, though, and those are still good. I don’t think it detracts from the writing at all, it just means that… well, that it is what it is. The show isn’t racist or misogynist, at all (at least as far as I can tell, although I certainly admit that I may have some blind spots). It’s much too smart for that, or at least I think it is. It just comes out of a certain place, with a certain perspective.

But yes, if you’re not white or male, the show may not exactly speak to you, any more than a lot Fellini movies do. You do have to be prepared to hang out a lot with white men with shaky ethical systems, mostly bald ones, and sometimes only wearing underwear. (The characters, that is. For you, that part is optional. ;))

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I’m a 41-year-old white male who’s a teacher and who figures my profession (at least in NC) doesn’t get the respect it deserves. You’d think that’d mean the show would really speak to me :).

Instead, though, it makes me angry at Walter White. I identify with a lot of his complaints, but think that moving from “this kind of sucks” to “let’s start manufacturing and dealing extremely lethal drugs” is a despicably selfish move to make.

I don’t need my characters to be heroic all the time–see my list of favorite shows from earlier. But I felt like I was supposed to at least empathize with White, and I really, really didn’t.

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How do you compare TV shows that fall into completely different genres?

As far as drama series goes BB is up there with The Wire, The Sopranos and Sherlock IMHO.

Personally though my all time favourite viewing experience would be Planet Earth or one of the other excellent BBC/Attenborough nature shows.

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Fair enough. Walt is an asshole. Maybe it just means that you’re a better than average person. If that’s the case, I’d rather be your friend than Walt’s.

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It’s also popular with powerless male nerds. They like to fantasize they could put on a hat and sunglasses and become a badass who kills dudes with their under appreciated genius. Which is funny, since Walter was often pretty stupid and pathetic. Like when he went all Heisenberg and was marching up to Fring’s house like he was the Terminator and got shut down instantly. Hilarious.

You can argue how “bad” someone is all day because people have different moral systems, but they all seem to have pretty straight forward motivations and personalities. The Walter/Jesse dynamic follows the standard cold/hot, logic/chaos, father/son/mentor tropes.

BB is a show mostly about balding white dudes slinging crystal and killing minorities, yeah. A major player in the series is a black guy who’s a smooth operator and not particularly stereotyped, well except for the fact he runs a fried chicken franchise. There’s a white girlfriend who comes into play, but she almost seems like some sort of cautionary tale of bros before hoes. The last season has a mildly interesting white woman but she doesn’t have a lot of agency and from what I can tell most BB fans just wanted to bang her.

By this standard, Orange is the New Black is the best show ever. Minority lesbian prisoners all day.

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FWIW I liked OITNB a helluva lot more than BB, so maybe you’re on to something :).

Edit: by the end of the third season, I was kind of hoping Piper would get shanked, or at least would get no more screen time. She really is the Walter White of the show.

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Oh, wow. They don’t. They just so really, really… don’t.

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I loved Breaking Bad and it was appointment TV for me.

My list of appointment shows, in order of preference:

The X-Files
The Sopranos
Breaking Bad
Dexter
Seinfeld (The only sit-com I’ve ever liked)