Is Breaking Bad really the best show ever?

Cafe Society
101

If BB had ended after the first season, I don’t think anyone would praise it as the best show ever.

In my case, the parts that I think about, talk about and re-watch the most seem to be season 2 and the first half of season 5, plus the final three episodes.

Seasons 3 and 4 are great, too, don’t get me wrong, but they sometimes get too caught up in plotting, at least IMO. The show is at its best when it’s about the characters, not Rube Goldberg style plots. Again, IMO. I think that seasons 3 and 4 maybe could have been squeezed into a single season (although I’m bracing myself for a possibly justified pelting of tomatoes for saying that). As much as we like to describe BB as “the world’s longest movie”, the show isn’t always perfect when it comes to narrative economy. Which is, I suppose, partly because it wasn’t all planned out in advance, even though Walt’s basic story arch, from chemistry teacher to crime lord, is given in the premise.

Sometimes it does knock it out of the park, though. The first half of season 5, in particular, is just fantastic when it comes to pacing.

Even so, a remarkable thing about the show is how holistic is feels. Every episode of every season is always built upon what came before, and skipping ahead or watching out of order is simply out of the question. As I’ve said before, even the pilot echoes through the show until the end.

102

I really loved it early on but by the end of series two i was sick of it. I hated most of the characters including Walt and thought that the writing team had resorted to some cheap shit to maintain interest, so I stopped watching. However as the praise kept building up I decided to watch the second half of series 5 as it aired. I caught up by August and watched the last 8 weeks.

In the end it was great entertainment but there are so many things that I don’t like about it that I couldn’t imagine it being the best show ever. So if you were asking that question to see whether to watch it I would suggest, go ahead if it only has to be good and not the best show ever made. However if you’ve already given up once I’d figure why bother. Actually I think BB is the only show I’ve ever resumed watching. Usually if I miss one episode and don’t bother catching up I just give up. There are plenty of other shows.

103

It’s very interesting reading different folks’ reactions to it. TBH, while folks saying it’s the best show ever don’t put me off, folks acting like that’s objectively true make me kind of never want to watch it again. Totally unfair to the show.

The unlikability of the characters is something of an issue. I recently read a novel in which the nicest character was a serial murderer (not like Dexter, just a dude who killed for the chance at earning a buck), and they all went downhill from there, and I can appreciate that sort of thing. But I need to be able to empathize with a character. I really had trouble empathizing with WW in the first season: the things that other folks find so compelling didn’t work for me. It may be that I was trying to second-guess the director, that I found the idea of “make drugs to provide for your family” such a transparently self-serving justification that I blamed the authors, when really I was supposed to think WW was a self-deluding dickhole.

104

Oh, yeah, me too, some shows put me off too much if the characters are not likable/good people. For me BB is not “real” so I can dismiss that but even on other “fun” shows I have had the same problem as you.

Suffice it to say, if you do not like BB in season 1 because Walter White is not a good person and hard to relate too, you will hate him even more and more as each season goes on. He keeps getting more and more evil.

105

The characters not being likable is interesting. That has never bothered me at all. Hey, I’m not particularly likable. Glaring and obvious personality flaws are fine, in my book. I certainly find it easier to empathize with Walt than caring about your average big, dumb hero. Captain America can piss off. The smug bastard. :wink:

And if someone thinks that the shortage of likable characters is a bug rather than a feature, then they’re kind of missing the point, I think. Sure, I understand that a lack of relatable characters can be a detriment to your viewing pleasure, and that’s fine. Again, me and Captain America. I’ve personally never had that problem with BB, though. And the characters being assholes certainly isn’t indicative of shabby writing, or any other kind of craft-related issue. That part is working entirely as intended, I can assure you.

That said, part of the fun of BB is seeing how far along the roller coaster ride to Hell you’re willing and able to go with Walt before you decide that, OK, *that *is too much, I’m getting off. If you *never *get to the point where you feel uncomfortable, then you should probably be put on some list, and monitored closely by people with tasers.

106

I liked BB.

But I liked The Wire and The Sopranos better by a lot.

I could go into a long boring dissertaiton about why this is the case, but really it just boils down to which show has the best characters. Walter White was a great character, as was Jesse. But the other characters were 2-dimension cutoffs compared to what they could have been.

107

#2 is Lost. I know that gets a lot of criticism, but I liked the show and thought it was great.

I also like The Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad. Also The Twilight Zone, House of Cards, The Good Wife.

Basically, my tastes are varied depending on the mood I am in.

To me BB represented the duality of man, you know the “are we ultimately good or are we evil” in a Genesis sort of sense. I could appreciate how Walter White ended up the way he did. In fact, I read that before the last season the writers were so concerned about the fans being 100% behind Walter White that they had to make him do more evil things so that there would be some hatred of him.

Probably my favorite scene was the opening of the last episode where he is in the car freezing his nuts off and finds the keys above the driver’s side visor and that Marty Robbins song plays. The scene captures his loneliness, desperation, and fear, but when the car starts and the song comes on, he has enough energy for his final push. I love that show.

108

If anything, it’s likely to work in reverse. When I thought the writers wanted me to say, “Sure, Walt, I can see why you’d make the decisions you’re making,” I was like, “fuck that, he’s a self-pitying douchebag who’s willing to murder other people so he can feel smart.”

But if in later seasons I’m not expected to sympathize with him–if I’m expected to see him as a monster–that sounds a lot less annoying.

109

I don’t remember who he murdered to feel smart in season one. Trying to recall who he killed–was it just the kid in the basement and Tuco?

I mean other than the people using the meth he cooked…

110

I don’t :).

111

In the first season he killed Emilio (in the van) and Crazy Eight (in the basement). Those actually were the only two deaths in season one. Tuco was killed by Hank in season two.

By my count, Walt killed 29 people either himself or on his direct orders. This doesn’t include indirect fatalities like Jane or the 167 plane crash victims (nor others killed as a consequence of his actions like the kid in the desert, Hank, or Steve).

112

Do you count Hector in that 29?

113

Hank, Mike and Saul are, imho, clearly not just 2-dimensional characters.

114

Yes. Although Hector was a suicide I think Walt was responsible for his death. Here’s the list of deaths in Breaking Bad from the show’s Wiki. They “credit” Walt with a total of 198, including 16 direct, 15 indirect, plus the 167 victims of the plane crashes. YMMV as to how exactly you attribute them.

115

I just watched up to the finale of S2, and I think you’re supposed to get Walt, more than sympathize with him. Whenever any of the stuff he does gets out, he’s called out on it being either stupid or unnecessarily evil or brutal, and the way it’s presented we’re almost always supposed to agree with the other people.

However, we’re supposed to understand why Walt does stupid evil things from his own perspective. We’re not supposed to sympathize like he’s a villain who had a damaged upbringing, or someone who went too far when he started out just trying to bring justice to the world.

He’s a guy who has flaws which are (for the most part) real character flaws that you probably know someone with, and those character flaws lead him to doing terrible things. Primarily his pride at first (and hey, a lot of people would feel like garbage taking that much charity from family, let alone friends), but more and more flaws worm their way out as time goes on. And he keeps on doing it and excusing all the shit because he thinks he’s morally justified because he’s “just doing it for his family”. In fact, that’s really the core of why he quickly gets so reprehensible, it all comes from a place of “fuck these junkie gangbangers, they’re getting in the way of my family’s future well being” and the personal pride that he is going to be the man that provides for his family.

I do think that early on you’re supposed to maybe “support” Walt a tiny bit just because he seems to be the least horrifically psychopathic person cooking meth on a grand scale aside from Jesse, but that’s not a very hard to reach milestone.

116

After reading this thread, I’ve decided that I’m going start watching The Wire.

117

I can’t say that BB ever really grabbed me. I’ve seen the first season, and about halfway through the second season, and I just kind of trailed off at some point, and haven’t ever really felt any pressing need to fire Netflix up and watch the rest of it.

It was gritty, and it was interesting, but it was… too intense. By that, I mean that situations where there should have been some comic relief, or that should have been funny were just intense and raw. Take for instance, Jesse’s attempted robbery of the RV from the salvage yard- the guy has this sort of chain of unfortunate and idiotic events that culminate with him falling into a porta-potty, breaking into the RV, and crying himself to sleep. Somehow that wasn’t funny at all in the show, but a combination of pathetic and sad. It just seems like everything going on in the show is DRAMATIC and INTENSE, even when it’s something that otherwise would be mundane and uninteresting.

Plus, none of the characters on that show are really very likeable. Oddly, I found Walt Jr. and Hank to be the most likeable people I’ve run across so far, because as unlikeable as they are, they’re not pretending to be anything other than that.

By comparison, The Sopranos had their humorous moments, and they were recognized as such, even if the rest of the time the show was grim and twisted, and showed just what sociopaths the Mafia guys really were. Plus, there were human moments that weren’t so intense or dramatic.

I’m not saying BB was a bad show- far from it. I’m just saying that IMO it wasn’t the best ever, and wasn’t even one that grabbed me like other shows have.

118

Plus 1. Nice to see someone else with the same tastes.

For me The Sopranos is supremely rich but The Wire is so subtly beautiful that they vie for number 1.

With Tony and Silvio you could laugh occasionally but with McNulty, D’Angelo, and Wallace…I wanted to cry.

Anyway - Breaking Bad is wickedly good and I was totally caught up in it until the end.

FYI watched and enjoyed Sons of Anarchy all the way but with a significant degree of skepticism from early on. I’m a motorcyclist and closet biker - only excuse I can come up with. :smiley:

119

It’s interesting to see how many of the shows bandied as “greatest ever” aired post-2000. I do not think that is recency bias; I think that there is compelling evidence that this is a golden age of television.

Breaking Bad started as a good, compelling show, but I would characterize its greatness as arising from the fact that it got better as it progressed. How many shows end with a better season than they start with - much less end with their best season of all?

Where I think that it loses something is that it never rose to more than “just” entertainment. It’s like Fargo only with longevity, or Arrested Development, or Seinfeld, or the Twilight Zone. It surpasses shows like X-Files or Lost, because their starts may have been higher, but their ends weakened the whole. They promised something and then failed to deliver.

Other shows, even comedies, carried equal or near-equal entertainment, and other weight besides. All in the Family, MASH and Mary Tyler Moore were all examples. I guess that I would put the best histories here, as well - Rome and Deadwood and Band of Brothers.

As for the greatest, hmm. Game of Thrones has production and spectacle unlike anything TV ever has seen, and the labyrinthine plot that the producers manage is extraordinary. It’s too early to put it in the pantheon, but it might end up there, if it continues to deliver. Firefly perhaps had a shot at reaching greatness, and True Detective still might put together seasons that are not just entertaining and prurient, but meaningful besides.

Of the shows that carried extra “weight,” I’d come down to The Wire and The Sopranos. The Wire carried the most weight - in terms of telling real-life stories, in terms of painting pictures, in terms of delivering a message - but the characters a touch thin and the writing stilted (note: thin and stilted in the context of all-time greats, not when compared to other shows outside of that realm). The Sopranos weaved allegories and fables into mundane, petty-crime events, and did more than any other show to create modern auteur TV. Of course, it also has the awful Tony Blundetto season that simply re-did all of the old Richie Aprile plots to drag out the time until the finale.

Is it too late to simply say de gustibus?

120

I’m not sure I’d put TZ in with those (except the revivals). Twilight Zone was an important show. It was often heavy handed in its moralizing, but it did a hell of a lot to bury metaphors in fantastical concepts so it could talk about things that would have been taboo to directly address in its day. It launched a lot of careers, and furthered others, and a lot of it is, even today, legitimately good.

I think a lot of people look past it due to being an anthology series, and thus it can’t give individual characters as much depth as a heavily serialized show, but the tradeoff is that it can talk about a greater breadth of things. It also has to be more economical with its themes, messages, metaphors, and settings. Breaking Bad can slowly ease you into a mythology (even if that mythology is close to real life), but Twilight Zone has to ease you into even more unreal worlds in much less time, and it often manages to succeed.

I’d put Buffy in there too. There’s no doubt in my mind that strictly as crafted entertainment Buffy is less well crafted, less consistent, and overall worse than Breaking Bad, let alone the other shows, but it also played with the medium of television and tried to say thing about our culture a lot more; I think it says something that academics are still getting a lot of essays out of it analyzing episodes from different angles.

In a way, I’m not sure “greatest show” is that well defined, because to me there are “important shows” and “well-crafted shows” and they’re not always the same thing. I suppose you could say the “best show” has to be both, but I think it’s too fuzzy to define properly.