It usually takes a few people to tell me that something is worth seeing before I eventually get around to watching something on television.
Despite the fact that half of this blog seems to be about TV, I don’t actually watch very much of it. I know what shows I like and I stick to them. And during football season, most of my viewing time is taken up with watching Match of the Day.
Recently, a ludicrous number of people have told me to watch Breaking Bad. So many that if it sucked, I would only have a few people whose opinions I still respected.
So, after reducing my Lovefilm subscription, I manged to save enough to subscribe to Netflix without any additional cost. I instantly fell in love with Netflix as well. For some reason, their user interface on both the Playstation 3 and the iPad seems to be so much better than Lovefilm’s that they’re not even in the same ballpark. And they also have a couple of Richard Herring stand-up shows which is another selling point.
Last night I finished watching the first series of Breaking Bad. It’s only 7 episodes and I managed to watch it in two days. I can sum up my thoughts in one word: wow.
It really is good television and I’m pleased that I can still trust the opinions of many of my closest friends.
The premise is quite simple – a science teacher dying of cancer teams up with a former student to make crystal meth in an attempt to leave his family well off after his death.
As it’s such a simple premise, I have been wondering at times where they’re going to go and how they’re going to make five seasons out of the idea. It has been slowly revealing more and more plot details and I’m not worried that it will become stale. Different people have told me that the endings of season 3 and season 4 are both incredible and the way that the show is written gives me confidence that it will continue to be good.
There are only a few key characters and I didn’t find the show slow to get into – although someone had suggested that I would – because of this. I got invested into the characters quite quickly as the main ones feature heavily in each episode and are very well defined.
I am especially fond of Walter Junior. He is a character with cerebral palsy and having looked after someone with it for the best part of a year in a former job, I was pleased to see such a positive representation on a prominent TV show.
The intervention scene in episode 5 is especially well written. It’s definitely my favourite bit so far. My least favourite bit was the fact that they decided we needed to see Walt’s naked bum. I’m not a prude but I’m wondering how much they had to pay him for the nude scene and whether that extra money could have been spent on getting Jessie to say “yo” or “bitch” a few more times instead. As I would have found that preferable.
But yeah, the intervention scene – wow. So well written. All of the characters are brilliant, well fleshed out and have their own consistent opinions and that scene shows that off perfectly. It wouldn’t have worked if one of the elements was not spot on. If anyone wants to learn how to write, they could do a lot worse than watch that scene repeatedly.
Most amazing thing I have learnt from watching the show that I should have already known before if I wasn’t so stupid: crystal meth is actually crystals. It seems to logical when you say it like that but I genuinely had no idea. I’m such a poor naive muggle in these matters.
As I mentioned, I really have no idea where the show is going to go. I’m hoping that it ends with Walt dying and going to heaven and God saying: “yeah, so you made all that money to look after your family. Kudos. However, you did it by doing a naughty naughty thing, so unfortunately you’re heading to hell” and then Walt turns up in the sequel to Chuck Palahnuik’s Damned which is conveniently released a few weeks after the final episode is going to be aired.
So, in conclusion, everyone who told me to watch the show was right. It’s the bomb, yo. If you haven’t watch it, you should do. Netflix gives you a free month so it’s worth checking out. Now I am off to watch seasons 2 through 5. See you all in a few weeks.