This post inspired me to make a thread.
So here I am telling you, all of you.
Breaking Bad is, in my opinion, the best thing that has ever been put on television. I know a lot of people feel the same. It is essentially flawless. It is intricately plotted, highly serialized, yet without any major plot holes. The characters change in interesting ways. The acting is superb - Bryan Cranston will win Best Actor for all 5 seasons of the show, but the supporting cast is also great. The cinematography is movie-like. Every detail in the show is thought out and executed with great care.
The premise is that a high school chemistry teacher - who is employed below his skill level - learns that he has inoperable cancer. He worries that he’ll leave nothing behind for his family, and decides to use his chemistry skills to become a player in the meth market to build up a stash for his family.
And from there we have various whacky hijinks when it turns out that the meth industry isn’t terribly safe or pleasant. I don’t want to give away too much.
One of the great things is that unlike a lot of serialized shows, it doesn’t revolve around a mystery. The writers don’t have to try to shoehorn crappy explanations or just drop entire story threads because they were just stringing us along and had no idea what they were doing. The writers know what they’re doing, and the series doesn’t require weirdness or unexplained things to drive the plot. It’s the opposite of Lost in this way.
What I will do is to recommend you watch the pilot. If you aren’t hooked after that, you are a bad person. You can catch the first 3 seasons on netflix instant watch, you can buy the pilot episode for $2 on amazon instant watch or $3 on iTunes (that’s the HD version - amazon also has HD for $3). Buy the DVD of season 1 if you can get a good deal on it, rent it if they do that sort of thing, or find any way you can to watch it.
No spoilers, please, but feel free to gush about the show if you’ve seen it to back me up here.