It's an ambitious goal for a series that is essentially a character study about an ordinary guy whose life is falling apart, and what those stresses do to him (comparisons to the 1993 Michael Douglas movie Falling Down are both common and apt). A result of its attempts to mix action, drama, and humour into a quiet character study leads to a series that takes a few episodes to completely figure out what it is. After the explosive pilot episode, the series slows down considerably, taking the next two episodes to tell a story that would usually take one.
This measured pace of the early episodes stands in marked contrast to the rushed final episodes, making it difficult to decide what the natural pacing of the show is intended to be (the season was originally slated to be nine episodes long, then cut to seven as a result of the writers strike). My guess is that the show would've preferred something between the two extremes, and will hopefully proceed that way with its second season (I should point out that while the second and third episodes were measured in their pacing, they weren't slow. In fact, they were kind of macabre).
Whatever unevenness that existed in the early episodes is mitigated by the performance of Bryan Cranston. It's a fantastic performance of quiet nuance that builds to sudden explosions, without ever devolving into blatant histrionics. As much as awards for art can be earned, Cranston earned his Best Actor win (as far as the also-prestigious Andy TV Awards go, Cranston joins the virtual coin flip with Gabriel Byrne and Jon Hamm for the award, with Byrne's quantity being the tiebreaker). Thanks to Cranston's assured performance, the series is able to stay grounded while pushing the boundaries of television drama.
The unique concept of the show is the hook, but what makes it great is how it moves beyond its audacious hook to encompass other things. It's as much about the high cost of getting sick in America as it is about the world of dealing drugs, giving the series a poignancy not suggested by sight of Cranston waving a gun in his underwear. The show's biggest flaw is that once you move past Walter and his struggles, interest wanes with the rest of the cast. Anna Gunn is solid as Walter's suffering wife, and Aaron Paul provides comic relief as Walter's partner-in-crime Jesse Pinkman (after a few shaky episodes to begin the season, where he was more annoying than enjoyable), but neither is strong by themselves, and the rest of the cast are basically just people Walter deals with.
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