OP, do you find you must either like or identify with characters in a show in order to enjoy the show?
It’s a dark drama, not a dark comedy. Once in a while humorous stuff happens, sure, but it’s definitely not a comedy.
Anyway, I would give it a few episodes before relegating it to your “hated it” pile. While I liked the show from the beginning, it didn’t really hit me how great it was until later in the first season when
Walt has to kill a guy with a bike lock in Jesse’s basement
If you can get to that point and still not like the show, fine, it’s just not the show for you, whatevs, not everyone has to like all the same stuff.
It helps anyway. Why would I hang around with fictional characters that I either find pathetic, boring, or want to punch in the face? I don’t do that in my regular life.
Well, let’s see. Shows that I’ve cared enough about to write fanfiction based on:
Doctor Who: The Original Series (Fourth Doctor mostly. Although the revival isn’t bad)
The Untouchables
Bonanza. But only before Adam Cartwright left the show.
Shows that are my favorites, but not fanfiction worthy:
Mystery Science Theater 3000
Most of the prime time cartoonery The Simpsons, South Park, Family Guy et al. Unfortunately, most of these are about to jump the shark, if they haven’t already.
Star Trek TOS
I, Claudius
Fawlty Towers
Roots
The goofy sixties comedies: The Beverly Hillbillies, Hogan’s Heroes, F Troop, Get Smart, Green Acres, I have a soft spot for silliness.
The aforementioned All in the Family, Barney Miller, Soap.
The Carol Burnett Show
The Muppet Show
More recently, Seinfeld and Married with Children
I do prefer comedy to drama. The lack of good comedy these days pisses me off the most. 
MST3K fanfic?
It’s been done, but not by me.
Yeah, BB is not for you. It’s something I enjoy, though.
Then I wish you many more happy seasons.
Planned obsolescense. Most of us are trying to figure out what neat tricks the writers have up their sleeves.
I mentioned it up thread in passing (specifally with a reference to Simpsons) but I’ll mention it again. I think you’d really like Psych. It’s a case of the week show, there’s no more character arc or continuity then you’d find in anything listed above and it’s equally as goofy. It’s nice because you don’t have to be invested in the show to like it. You can watch an episode today and not feel like you have to stay up to watch the next one to see how something resolves. Or, if you get 8 episodes in and decide it’s just not for you, you can stop watching it and not feel like you’re missing out on a big reveal or twist or cliffhanger. Also, if you’re just going to give the first episode a shot, I think it hits the ground running..or at least running a hell of a lot faster then Breaking Bad (which I also really like). But it’s designed to do that since, like the shows you listed above, the characters aren’t very deep. The only back story you need for any given character is given as it becomes necessary for that specific episode (“Hey, remember that time when you met that girl…” etc)
BTW, if I were you, I’d stay far away from True Blood, you probably wouldn’t like that either.
Anticipation, tension, and secrecy are fine. But dragging such things out over several episodes ruins it.
Unpredictability is the soul of comedy. Of course I don’t find it appalling.
I like sympathetic characters. Did you mean UN-sympathetic? These are fine as well, but the unsympathetic character has become so omnipresent in today’s fiction that they are in danger of becoming cliched.
Characters different than myself? I certainly don’t act like any of the characters in the shows that I cited that I like.
Aberrant behavior and panicking? Make the aberrant behavior interesting and it’s fine. Panicking is okay too, within reason. It has to make sense after all.
As for succinctness in story structure, yes, I like it in general. For a real lesson in beautiful pacing see “The Empty Chair” episode of The Untouchables. It was the establishing episode of the original series, and perfectly done. No, didn’t cover the entire four year run of the show. It didn’t have to.
Almost all the shows you mentioned liking are single-episode comedies that don’t have complex plots or long storylines. So I’m not sure why you would even be trying to pass judgment on shows that are obviously not in your genre.
I don’t really like musicals, I’ve seen a few live that I enjoyed but it’s just not something I really like. For that reason you’re never going to see me writing a review of one, because criticism is supposed to come from some place of experience. I would argue you do not have the experience of even an educated viewer to pass judgment on Breaking Bad.
I’d probably say it is more valid for you to review Modern Family, Community, Parks & Recreation and similar shows. You reviewing Breaking Bad is like me reviewing Wicked or something.
Outside of the comedy realm if you’re wondering why there aren’t shows like Bonanza and Gunsmoke anymore is basically because most of society considers those nice historical relics that did some important, innovative things in their time but not terribly entertaining anymore.
You’re essentially in a small minority that still wants to watch shows like that, and you are why TV Land network exists.
In the 1990s you saw a ton of shows like Bonanza and Gunsmoke, shows dramas which had single episode story arcs that always got resolved at the end of the show. By and large most of them were not good, most of them were spinoffs of Law & Order (which while fine as background noise was in and of itself not that good), or various police procedural dramas.
It got to the point where every show in the format like you’re talking about just became another carbon copy police show with a few gems in the rough here and there. This really I think lead to more writers and creators developing shows that weren’t intentionally trying to fit into a pre-fabricated “mold.”
Shows like Law & Order and Gunsmoke were designed to captivate for one hour at a time, and to tie everything up at the end. It worked very well back in the Gunsmoke days, and it worked well for most of Law & Order’s run, but the problem eventually became that I think all shows of this type got distilled into 3-4 different “archetypes” all with identical stories.
Gunsmoke and Bonanza were somewhat pioneering but if you actually watched a lot of TV back then many, many imitators came out that sucked badly and died quick deaths. Unfortunately in the 1990s the age of the imitators was 10 years and into the early 2000s and many of them hung on for 10+ seasons. I think to some degree this has killed off demand for simple dramas that resolve everything in an hour. Fans now want a story that develops slowly over several episodes, with characters you don’t really feel like you know until halfway through the first season (if not longer.)
If you’re someone who really liked the Gunsmoke format you won’t like that, but I think most of TV drama viewers got burned out on that format from 1990-2003 or so.
Precisely. Never confuse the possibility that it doesn’t intrinsically suck-balls, rather that it’s just not your thing.
I would never say Celiene Dion is a horrible musician, because that genre of music just doesn’t do anything for me (I may be seen grimacing). But I have no real experience of her work, so how could I say with any credence that she sucks-balls? In fact, I give her the benefit of the doubt that she might be a great musician, but I wouldn’t really know. Even if I listened to her “best of” works for days on end.
This attitude that anyone can critique anything, based on their meager insufficient bubble of exposure to it, especially if they have no taste or experience of it simply infuriates me.
I reviewed Breaking Bad in response to a challenge in another thread.
I don’t think I’m inexperienced when it comes to television drama. I’ve been watching television since before I could talk. Some of my first words were commercial jingles. I’ve watched dramas alongside of comedies for almost fifty years. Yes, it’s true that I prefer comedies to dramas. I don’t think that means that I can’t make a cogent review of an episodic drama. I understand the guidelines.
If you’ll notice, in my original review, I didn’t even mention the slow pacing of the story because I am aware of the fact that the story arc extends over several episodes. I happen to think that this makes most of today’s dramas rather turgid affairs, but I refrained from pointing this out then because it’s simply a given of the genre. I mentioned the show’s good premise and natural dialog, because that’s something good that the show had, and it should be mentioned. A review should be fair to the piece in question.
I find Walter White’s character uninteresting, and his panicked rampage in the RV unconvincing. I’m sorry, but that’s my opinion. A review is merely a stated opinion of a production. You don’t need a degree in the theatrical arts to review something. And a review doesn’t always have to be positive. Reviews would be useless things then.
I was challenged to review Breaking Bad, and I did.
But the reason I challenged you to that particular show, is because it’s currently considered by audiences and critics as one of the best shows on television.
I could’ve just as easily suggested anything else currently airing; the point being that you remarked that there hasn’t been anything worth watching since the 70s, in a thread about what shows you’re anticipating for the upcoming season.
I’m sure, as a rational person, a statement like that will be readily challenged and strongly disagreed with by the vast majority of television watchers.
You seem like you enjoy fiction. You write fiction. Where’s the disconnect? If you insist that television isn’t anywhere near the blinding bright spot of TV that was Green Acres, Star Trek OS, or Bonanza, I would like to hear your reasoning, than just out-of-hand dismissals of current programming.
To be absolutely correct, I did not say there hasn’t been anything worth watching since the 70’s. I listed among my favorites shows like Seinfeld, Married with Children, MST3K, along with the current crop of prime time cartoons.
You challenged me to watch the first episode of Breaking Bad, and not like it.
I watched it. I didn’t like it. Case closed. I’m sorry if this outcome upsets you. It’s not like you lost a money bet or something.
I don’t see any disconnect in my fictional preferences. I like my fiction to be entertaining. That’s my main requirement. I also like good pacing, wit, and making sense is nice too. But I can forgo making sense if the story is entertaining enough.
Okay, resolved, I don’t like Breaking Bad. Somewhere else on this thread, someone suggested that I watch something named Psych. Perhaps I’ll try that, and see what happens.
And this list is becoming strangely longer (bolding mine)…
So we go from “Not a damn thing”, to this list of shows (incidentally, the majority are from the 70s), and even a few that are currently airing, or were fairly recent. I hate to beat a dead horse, here, or appear that I’m picking on you, exclusively, but day-um, If you’re telling me I inferred wrong from these consecutive posts, you have me really confused.
It’s not that I’m upset, at all, that you didn’t like BB, and it was your idea to start this review thread. I’m merely indulging my main point here. Either you’re extremely biased toward a period of television that is nostalgic to you, and are heavily guarded against anything new, or you haven’t been entirely forthcoming. You… fascinate me. 
Yes, I am heavily biased toward 70’s shows. With good reason. I never said I wasn’t.
Are you confused because I said “It’s just like last season. There’s not a damn thing I’d bother watching.” and neglected to mention the prime time cartoons?
Because I profusely apologize for confusing you then.
Of course, since the prime time cartoons Simpsons, South Park, Family Guy, etc. have been running now for over ten years, I’d hardly consider them new shows. I didn’t even consider them part of the new TV season because new animated episodes tend to come out in spurts unrelated to the schedules of regular TV programs. Animated shows are always a class apart.
Oh, and I’ve just watched the first episode of Psych. I’m not even going to bother with a separate review thread like I had planned. Suffice to say it’s a routine detective show starring Smug Annoying Bastard with his “Damn White Boy, You Crazy!” Black Friend. I won’t be watching another episode of that either.
And my lonely quest to find new TV that doesn’t suck continues…
Hell, I watch that for the opening credits music.