I missed this show during its initial run on AMC, for the simple reason that I had no idea that my cable provider carried AMC until I stumbled upon an episode of Breaking Bad while flipping channels. At that point, the series was already underway, so I didn't watch, but did put it on my to-see list. Following star Bryan Cranston's shocking Emmy win for Best Leading Actor in a Dramatic Series, AMC hooked me up with a marathon showing of all seven season-one episodes (yes, I'm suggested they did it for my benefit).
Breaking Bad is the story of Walter H. White (Cranston), a high school chemistry teacher struggling to make ends meet with his stay-at-home wife Skyler (Anna Gunn), when he is diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. Confronted with his limited mortality and despondent with the series of indignities that make up his life, Walter decides to use his chemistry knowledge to start cooking crystal meth after running into a meth-dealing former student (Aaron Paul).
Reading that description, one might expect Breaking Bad to be a depressing, Alan Ball-type examination of suburban ennui, but then you see the pictures associated with the show featuring shlubby Cranston in his tightie whities and you start to expect a Weeds-type black comedy dealing in the absurd. While I'm a big fan of Ball's Six Feet Under and was a big fan of early seasons of Weeds, I'm thankful that neither expectation was met.
Instead, creator Vince Gilligan found a happy middle, mixing absurdist black humour with genuine drama and pathos, while being unafraid to navigate the dark side of the life Walter has impulsively chosen (whereas Weeds tends to hint at them, then dismiss them for more wacky hijinks). Walter is forced to deal with some very high stakes very early on in the show (as in immediately, as the show begins with Walter desperately trying to find a way out of a horrible predicament in the series' gripping opening scene), setting the tone for a show that successfully meshes tense action with its drama and humour.
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