Breaking Bad Review Eight Years Later…

Every once in a while I get the urge to watch a popular series. Being that I don’t have TV for other than local broadcast, I have to rely on “word of mouth” and pop culture references to find out about “new” series to enjoy.

I posted a thread on a “special interest forum” about which series to watch. I had narrowed down my choices to “The Walking Dead” and “Breaking Bad”.

The overwhelming consensus was Breaking Bad.

So I was off to a popular auction site to but a legitimate copy of the entire series. I had done this before with a few other series as well.

You almost can’t exist today without knowledge of the basic plot, Teacher, cancer, broke, desperate, etc.

For plot spoilers, that will be as far as this review goes.

Casting Miscues

From the start of the series there were some issues I had with some of the actors, notably the actress playing Skyler White “Anna Gunn”. She always seemed as if she was reading her lines from a cue card. Early in the series the role looked as if it was too complex for her abilities and as the series progressed, I was seldom able to look past this. She had some moments but for the most part she just “wandered” through her lines and the story.

I’m not entirely sure if she was cast in this role to offset Brian Cranston’s jump from primarily light comedic roles to an intense drama but whatever the reason IMO it did not work.

Also, the habit of pulling actors, “mostly bad guys” other roles in other work in a vain attempt to give the story legitimacy seemed to come off as a “cheap desperate trick” .

Wasted Episodes

For a series lasting this long (6 seasons) there was bound to be some down time. However, there were some complete episodes that IMO were just a waste of time. There were also story lines that dragged the series to an almost complete stop. In fact at one point during season four I had to “walk away” for a month it was getting unbearable to watch.

Extended tease scenes

STOP IT… Tease for one or two episodes ahead, not one or two seasons. More cheap trickery IMO.

The Lawyer

Really? Like Skyler White, this guy had a few good scenes at best. I’ve read reviews about how he steals every scene he was in, and the like… I’m like WTF? So much so they spun off his own series. I guess this is what society wants so maybe the future prediction in the movie Idiocracy was right.

To be honest the series from about season 5 ½ to the end is really good. Maybe these writers should have been under contract with HBO on how to end GOT.

There was at the MOST, 5 seasons of decent material here, and could probably have been done in 4 and the result would have been a much better paced, enjoyable drama series.