'It had never been done on television before': The oral history of "Breaking Bad"

Esquire ^ | 16 Jan 2018 | Emma Dibdin

[Drew68]

Television changed the night of January 20, 2008: Breaking Bad, a bold and singular drama about a downtrodden, dying high school teacher so desperate for cash that he starts cooking crystal meth, would come to define a golden era of television. But nobody knew that on the night the show premiered. In fact, there was every reason to assume the show, debuting on a then-nascent network with no track record in original programming, wouldn’t last past its first season.

Breaking Bad was not a ratings hit, not a household name, not a show that earned a spot in the zeitgeist for several years. Its slow-burn character writing, bleakly stunning visuals, and moral nuance made it niche; its early days brought a series of hurdles that could have killed a lesser show. But it had a passionate fanbase, a growing mass of critical support, and a network that believed in this story of a good man gone bad—or, depending on your take, a bad man finally given the chance to unmask himself.

Turning "Mr Chips into Scarface," as creator Vince Gilligan has famously dubbed Walter White’s transformation from milquetoast to ruthless drug lord, is no small feat. Through Bryan Cranston’s six-time Emmy winning performance, viewers witnessed a modern-day Greek tragedy—a man who claims to be protecting his family but ends up destroying them, along with Jesse (Aaron Paul), his protégé and greatest victim. It was a meticulous, mesmerizing character study that made it impossible to look away once you were in. As the acclaim and the awards piled up, the ratings gradually followed. By the season finale in 2013, viewership had spiked tenfold, with a record 10.3 million viewers tuning in for the final chapter.

[Blue Highway]

Yeah that was the part I thought the show jumped the shark with Gus walking out of the room where his whole body would have been in pieces, but he walks out calmly, fixes his tie then the camera pans around to see he is missing half of his face. Totally unbelievable.

[wardaddy]

Growing pot and cooking meth are barely comparable

And to cops too

They detest meth but find pot a nusaince barely worth the paper work unless you have cash and assets they can glom to buy neat stuff for themselves with

Or it’s a monster grow or transport seizure

[HotHunt]

Come on.

It's a TV program. Entertainment. Fantasy. Make believe. Not real.

One of the best series ever.

I watched it originally and then watched the marathon of it last year.

And somehow I am still a normal, well-adjusted 70 year old who hasn't started doing meth.

Flawed theory.

[wardaddy]

Quit being such a scold

Has it not occurred to you this is a thread about Breaking Bad ..a show long since done....and folks who haven’t seen it might just be smart enough to realiE if they don’t want to know then don’t view the thread

It’s like “graphic pics of Mexican cartel executions” of Breitbart south Texas desk.....

I know better than to click if I don’t want to see decapitsted heads lined up

Most folks know to avoid this unless they don’t care plus how many a,Eric and do not know Walter White died final episode?

Really

Newsflash kids

DO NOT COME TO FREE REPUBLIC OLD YELLER THREAD UNLESS YOU WANt YOUR LIFE. RUINED ....
FOREVER

I like your nick dear btw....just relax

[Pelham]

Never saw GOT but Sopranos is definitely the gold standard.

I need to check and see if there’s a new season of The Night Manager.

[Vermont Lt]

Stupid, huh?

Grow up. I am not going to protect your from the world. The show has been out there for freakin years. If you are just hearing about it now, I feel sorry for you.

get with the times.

[21twelve]

“In one fell swoop, Newhart’s finale wiped out 8 years of episodes.”

Here’s the last episode of Craig Ferguson’s Late Night Show. A long interview with Jay Leno, and a great bit at the end starting at about 38 minutes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbHenhl-QTY

[dfwgator]

I’m sure it’s everything you say it is, but it’s just not my cup of tea.

The world is a terrible place, I don’t need to watch a show to remind me of it.

[wardaddy]

I wonder now that he is a big star and touted as new Bond if he’s still contracted for that

Great locations

[AnonymousConservative]

These shows don’t appeal to everyone.

I watched all of Breaking bad, and it just seemed at its core to be about a dumbass who couldn’t shoot straight, and as a result screwed up the lives of everyone who he owed loyalty to. He screwed people over he didn’t need to screw over, did stupid things that put him in a corner and forced him to kill relative innocents, and in the end got his brother in law, who had his family’s back when he had cancer, killed in the desert. I though it was depressing, outside of the interesting aspects of learning how smart drug dealers camouflage their operations, and a few clever plays he made.

I got done with it and was happy to be rid of it.

Dexter was more entertaining, as he was always killing bad people, and it had a dark humor at times. But as with the shows like this which are good, as time went on toward the end, they wrote out of character, had Dexter do dumb things he wouldn’t have done, and in the end he spares a genuinely evil person, effectively kills the sister who was always loyal to him, abandons his son and girlfriend, and it ends with him miserable and isolated.

For some reason these writers seem to need to ruin the character’s lives at the end of the stories by making them do dumb things they would never have done. Even Burn Notice suffered from this toward the end. I suspect the writers who start the good shows, end up by season five or six wanting some down time so they allocate writing duties to newbies who feel they have to change things to put their own stamp on it and not just be formulaic.

And by the end the show is a different character doing things that screw everything up.

[Drew68]

I binged. Being able immediately see “what happens next” was what kept me watching. If I’d had to wait a week I might have lost interest.

I don't like watching TV shows any other way. Binging really rewards those who are patient. If an episode is great, you can roll right into the next one without losing interest. If an episode is weak, the following one will redeem it.

I binged the first five seasons of The Walking Dead and enjoyed it immensely. Once I started watching it live in season 6, it just wasn't the same.

I waited for six seasons of Game of Thrones to pass before I sat down last year with my wife and devoured this excellent series in just a few weeks. One reason why I like how Netflix will drop a whole season of their original programming all at once. And I think doing this is another nail in the coffin of the cinema box office. It's so much more rewarding to stay at home and binge several hours of a great show than go to the movies. Not to mention cheaper.

[warsaw44]

yikes...brutal spoiler, FRiend!

[gundog]

BB spoofed that ending in the Special Features of the DVD.

[IronJack]

I don’t think Walter intended to get shot in the final episode. It was just as well he did, since he was walking dead anyway. And there was no more story to tell once that final bloodbath was finished. But it was more a narrative convenience than any organic part of Walter’s character development.

[EdnaMode]

Yeah I think you’re right.

[EdnaMode]

I discovered it right before the last season aired. Binged it and caught up with 6 episodes to go and watched those live.

[Big Red Clay]

I watched the entire series in a two and a half week binger. It was so good that I just couldn’t stop. It did not surpass my all time favorite which is “The Sopranos” but it is right up there on my list. I thought they did a great job wrapping up the series. The last few episodes were masterful.

We just started watching the series “Fargo” on Hulu. I highly recommend it. It has been excellent so far.

[Squeako]

My very conservative elderly mother just binge watched all five seasons, staying up to 4:00 in the morning a few times. She loved it and would tell me about which episode she had just finished. I would ask if “Pollos Hermanos” or “Vamanos Pest” meant anything to her to to gauge where in the series she was. I’ve rewatched the entire series twice. I told her to watch “Better Call Saul” next.