On Jan. 20, 2008, TV changed for the better. Nobody knew it right away. In fact, most people did not see this show making it past its first season. But this bold, daring series would eventually come to define a golden age of modern television. That show is “Breaking Bad.”
AMC was not known for its original programming. It was a network known more for its Fourth of July marathons than anything else and had just committed to a little show called “Mad Men” as its first original series. But AMC believed in this story of a good man breaking bad and took a gamble on it. It was a show that HBO, TNT and FX all passed on and probably regretted during its height.
Most main characters are stagnant. Their motivations do not change and the viewer can rely on them. Their actions are not going to surprise viewers because they have been cycling through different versions of the same day, season after season. Most shows are comfort food in that way, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but Vince Gilligan never wanted to do that. He wanted to tell a story in which the character viewers follow completely changes between the first episode and the finale. He wanted to create an evolution before the audience’s very own eyes.
In this case, that character was Walter White, a man beaten by the hands life dealt him. He was once a man of science and discovery, but when viewers meet him, he is a struggling high school chemistry teacher. Not only that, but he learns he is dying of lung cancer and it is inoperable. To top that off, Walt decides that cooking meth is the only way to leave his family the money they deserve after he dies.
Gilligan describes the transformation of Mr. White as turning “Mr. Chips into Scarface.” An argument could be made that White is a good man forced to turn bad because of society and the obstacles thrown his way. Everything revealed about him backs this argument up, but the things audiences discover about who Walt truly is could also back up the argument that he was always a bad man, and the cancer allowed him to finally be himself.
Bryan Cranston’s reign of Heisenberg won him six Emmy awards. Cranston brought this timid teacher turned ruthless drug lord to life. The thought of Matthew Broderick or John Cusack, two notable actors who turned down the role, playing the one who knocks is unfathomable. It would not have been the same; it could not have. AMC had its doubts about the family man from “Malcolm in the Middle” breaking bad, but those doubts did not last long. Gilligan shut the worriers up when he showed them an episode of “The X-Files” where Cranston plays a racist, and after that, the role was his.
White is the centerpiece of a character study enthralled in a modern Greek tragedy. Gilligan and the show’s other writers have cited the sonnet “Ozymandias” by Percy Bysshe Shelley as a direct inspiration. “My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings; Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!” White excuses all of his scheming, murdering and drug manufacturing as him protecting his family, when in fact he is torturing them all to a point of destruction. He does the same thing with Jesse (Aaron Paul), his apprentice, and arguably the greatest victim of all of this.
Most shows dwindle as they continue, both in terms of ratings and viewership. “Breaking Bad” did not. Season after season, its viewership expanded and the awards kept on coming. When the first three seasons were added on Netflix in the midst of shooting the fourth season, the show’s popularity shot up again. People were, for one of the first times, binging a series before watching the newest season on actual TV. People were sitting down and witnessing the evolution of Walter White, thus far, in a single viewing, something that is commonplace in TV today.
AMC president, Charlie Collier, credits the show’s marathons and the introduction of Netflix as key reasons for the show’s popularity and success. It did not do anything for the brilliance that Gilligan and company were creating, but it opened a lot of new doors for people to discover “Breaking Bad.”
“Breaking Bad” was the it-thing on TV for its fourth and fifth seasons. Die-hard fans have been following along since 2008, but the word of mouth around the show was like something never seen before. If you were not watching “Breaking Bad,” you were not in the cool kids’ club anymore. It was a borderline pop culture sin not to be caught up with “Breaking Bad” by the time the final season was airing.
The show raised the bar in terms of both narrative and visuals. Visually, “Breaking Bad” is more gorgeous than most movies. The cinematic look and feel of the show was a character in and of itself. Michael Slovis, who shot 50 episodes of the series, beautifully captured the landscape of New Mexico and all its intricacies for the characters to navigate like chess pieces. Narratively, there will never be a character viewers hated to love more than Mr. White.
There will never be another “Breaking Bad,” and that is why we are talking about it 10 years later. People can argue about what the greatest show of all time is, but when people who hate watching TV are as obsessed as the die-hard critics, the answer is clear. If a friend needs something to watch and has not experienced the hidden gem turned cultural phenomenon that is “Breaking Bad,” have them watch the first episode. They will regret having waited so long.
Image from AMC via YouTube.com
