Two for Two

After the cable channel AMC found critical success and a rabidly loyal audience for Mad Men, its first scripted show, they had to figure out what other original programming they wanted to develop. When Breaking Bad premiered two years ago, a couple of months after the first season of Mad Men ended, I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was pretty certain there was no way it could live up to the level of quality established by Mad Men.

I couldn't have been more wrong. It's nothing like Mad Men, but it is equally fine television. The premise is deceptively simple: a high-school chemistry teacher learns that he has terminal cancer, so in order to provide for his family after his death, he looks up a former student who is a small-time drug dealer, and together they make and sell methamphetamine. Bryan Cranston has won the Best Actor Emmy the past two years for his portrayal of teacher turned meth-maker Walter White, in what is unquestionably one of the most amazing performances television has ever given us, while the show has grown as emotionally complex and morally ambigiuous as The Sopranos.

We're now three episodes into the third season (it airs at 10 PM Eastern time Sundays) and Breaking Bad just keeps getting better. Without giving anything away, these first three episodes have been a slow burn, but the feeling that all hell is going to break loose (as Tim Goodman put it over at The Bastard Machine) is just below the surface. And the most recent episode ended with one of the greatest "holy shit" moments I can ever remember seeing. With just three words (one of which had to be edited to satisfy the FCC's ridiculous standards), Walter's wife Skyler utterly blew his domestic fantasy out of the water.

At the same time, the show's tension and darkness is cut with a vein of pitch-black humor; I usually laugh out loud at least a couple of times each episode. Like a growing number of cable-network shows, Breaking Bad is filmed in the area where it takes place (in this instance, Albuquerque), and the photography and use of natural settings are outstanding.

If you're interested in this show (and it should be pretty clear that I'm trying to spark your interest), the first season had only seven episodes (due to the writers' strike), and season two had thirteen, so you could get into the show pretty quickly. AMC usually does a mini-marathon of current-season episodes at some point during the season, so you still have time to get on board. [Just checked their web site: the first five episodes of season three will be shown on Friday, April 23, starting at 8 PM Eastern.]

Unfortunately, unlike most other networks, the one thing they don't do is show episodes online, so to catch up on seasons one and two, you will have to either buy them from iTunes or Amazon, or Netflix the DVDs. But I guarantee it's worth your time. Breaking Bad is the best show airing now that you are probably not watching.