BREAKING BAD vs MAD MEN

have only watched a handful of episodes of one and it was Mad Men, but i kind of dislike it to a degree that I voted for Breaking Bad even though i haven't seen it, neither just didn't seem to cut it.

Dunno how Breaking Bad manages to feel more involving than Mad Men, given the subject matter, maybe it's because you're allowed much more inside the characters' heads in Breaking Bad, in Mad Men you feel like more of an onlooker.

Also Breaking Bad is much funnier, so Breaking Bad wins.

― Matt DC, Wednesday, July 21, 2010 5:11 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

prob cuz BB is a fast-paced thriller at heart while MM is more opaque and contemplative

Mad Men, though I've only watched the first season of Breaking Bad. But even pitching S1 of BB against S1 of MM, I'd still definitely vote for the Sterling Cooper lot. Breaking Bad's really really good, but season 1 of Mad Men is probably my favourite first season of any US TV show I can think of, bar Twin Peaks.

they're both great, but there was something that kept me glued to MM that i haven't found in BB. apparently it's got even better. i guess i really hated cranston's wife was one thing. but there were some amazing eps and i want to get back into it.

they both have alliterative names which is cool, might all come down to whether you like B or M better

only one had a serge gainsbourg song named after it am i right

initials MM

i think on the whole BB is FUNNER... mad men can get boring at stretches. both are pretty good at mixing it up and being fairly unpredictable, which is nice

I voted Breaking Bad because Cranston and THE TENSION. Also I like Albuquerque more than New York.

Love Mad Men though of course. Maybe I'll have a different answer in 12-13 weeks. Probably. I hope so.

Also it's not such a stretch when you make it more about Walter, Jr./Flynn vs. the annoying Draper kids.

I don't really like Mad Men.

That's because you're in Boston (or thereabouts)

I think

eh, I think really it's more that I am not at all interested in the story

I acknowledge that it's well written and well acted, but I never want to watch it.

It's entirely possible that it's a white people thing.

Oh yeah, I went there.

nah, I have too many friends who aren't white who love the show to run with that line

(although sometimes I feel that way)

Seriously, though, I doubt the pre-civil-rights 60's has much romance unless seen from a perspective of white privilege, and a ton of it at that. Mad Men's nods to that don't make that different, they just make that nodded-to. You know?

Certainly, the ladies of Mad Men trample all over the ladies of Breaking Bad

that's not very nice of them

jesses new gf is fn smokin

"Nice" never got anyone an Emmy.

The ladies of Mad Men have to prove that they can keep up with the imagined woman of 2009 or 2010.

Both shows are to be applauded for achieving much more than might be suggested by their apparently tired basic premises. Pretty sure I groaned when I first heard them each described. But certainly The Sopranos is the ne plus ultra of that.

def felt that with BB [via weeds]

but don't think MM has a tired premise

ANOTHER show about a desperate dying high school teacher who becomes a drug lord?!?!?!

Chemistry teacher becomes methmaker. (post Weeds and Hung)

I know BB was before Hung, but it wasn't for me

aw

Maybe contrived was a word to use along with tired.

http://www.boisestate.edu/courses/westciv/earlymod/trails/globe/HollarGlobeDef.jpg

"another revenge tragedy? yawnsville, pop. me"

I know BB was before Hung, but it wasn't for me

― Sensational Howard (admrl), Wednesday, July 21, 2010 2:17 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

we'll just pretend you meant William Hung

I sort of watch Mad Men out of necessity or duty, like pop cultural homework, and wish more eps were like the season 3 finale. I watch Breaking Bad because it is fucking awesome.

Mad Men - before I got into it, every time I turned it on it seemed incredibly glossy to me, like a magazine, and I only got the characters' unlikable sides. It felt like it was trading way more on the coolness of everything than the character stuff, whereas of course once you get into it, it's a nice balance, even synthesis, of both.

lol @ history mayne

Hung is a'ight

I voted Breaking Bad because Cranston and THE TENSION.

This does make me feel it's a "better" show, but I've never felt any desire to rewatch any episodes, whereas if an episode of Mad Men happens to be playing while I'm flicking through the channels, I'll always watch it.

I am basically the opposite of this:

I sort of watch Mad Men out of necessity or duty, like pop cultural homework, and wish more eps were like the season 3 finale. I watch Breaking Bad because it is fucking awesome.

I would never watch a show for "homework".

Breaking Bad looks great but I feel like I would have to sit and watch all of the series to appreciate it/know what's going on, and I don't have the time to do that right now.

kind of feel like most non-comedy things i watch involve people in danger of death/prison etc, so MM is a nice change from that

Life is a prison, man

That's what Mad Men really tells you

It is a theme, for certain.

Life is a prison but occasionally you get to take a business trip somewhere nice

And fuck someone more interesting than your wife.

Maybe you should watch Hung, history mayne. I don't think you can go to prison for having a big penis

Oh I guess it's comedy, though. but it isn't that funny.

I love both but breaking bad is so much more fun and mad men started to get too soap opera-y

having a big penis is serious business

Love them both, but definitely love Mad Men more -- and not just because Breaking Bad has had a couple gratutious grossout parts that really got on my nerves (the bloody leaking bathtub -- which almost made me give up on the series, really early --, the people-crushing cash machine.) (Also, since I watch them on Netflix, I've only seen two seasons of Breaking Bad to Mad Men's three; not inconceivable that it could catch up, at some point.)

Maybe you should watch Hung, history mayne. I don't think you can go to prison for having a big penis

Or watch Party Down. You can be hung like a mule and still be the world's biggest moron.

einstein's cock was gigantic

I always thought the pilot was odd because it kind of had to set up the whole premises of the show, I suspect it was written before everything else hence why it feels a lot different in tone. There’s some frontal nudity in it too isn’t there? Idk it probably should’ve been like 3 episodes in total.

The show does an amazing job with Hank. He starts off as a one-note, racist clown--some of his byplay with Gomey is funny--but after the Tortuga incident and then his shooting (and difficult recovery), I think he becomes a nuanced character you empathize with. (If you can't get past the early Hank, fair enough.) I also really like how both Mike and Hank come to see Jesse as a decent person, significantly more so than Walter.

(Also add Hank's brutal beatdown of Jesse to the key events that change him.)

Yes always thought so about the portrayal of Hank changed dramatically but naturally during the course of the show.

There’s a scene in the fourth or fifth season, at the end of an episode, where Hank has a long monologue laying down all the evidence about Heisenberg. It’s so riveting - even though you basically know everything already! A great scene, a great piece of acting.

I mentioned that a few days ago on a different BB thread--one of the greatest scenes of the entire run. Obviously, don't watch this if you've never seen the show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiUmudjyuSw

The way he holds back the fingerprint till the last possible second, and that aw-shucks thing with his eyes at the very end--masterful acting.

Jesse famously one of those characters who was not supposed to be part of the main cast

If I ever knew that I'd forgotten it, so thanks Lavator that is actually helpful -- I feel like his back story doesn't quite add up in S1, so it makes sense.

And yeah frogbs, the pilot is very pilot-y though usually I mean that in a bad way, but here it's just really self-contained and exciting (I don't recall nudity though, would be surprising for AMC, no?) in a way where the shift into normal episode pace feels kind of rough

Hank's arc is a real achievement, yeah

I thought there was a moment where we see Jesse run out of an apartment building and we see a topless lady wave out the window. maybe I imagined that.

Hank I kinda figured was like Jesse, feels like they liked the actor enough to give the character more nuance and screentime. I also think it came out of a need to have one main character you could actually root for.

one of my favorite moments early on is when they go to Tuco's place and Hector is there. nothing about the Salamancas has been revealed nor has the overall tone of the show really, so Hector's character comes off as this bizarre Lynchian thing. you don't know if he's lost his mind or not. but you assume he's just a weird one-episode character. and then he winds up being very central to the entire plot.

and yes that scene with Hank is amazing, love how he goes Columbo at the end

You're remembering the woman from the first episode correctly--she's only on-screen for three or four seconds.

I never get tired of Lydia.

I thought there was a moment where we see Jesse run out of an apartment building and we see a topless lady wave out the window. maybe I imagined that.

No, it's there (although maybe only on the DVD/Blus): When we first see Jesse, we get a brief glimpse of the nude older woman he'd just been hooking up with. A weird footnote: The actress playing her, Linda Speciale, is probably most famous for starring as the 'Good Girl' in the early '80s Cult Teen Sex Comedy Screwballs.

i think BB really did a great job of flipping who you were supposed to be rooting for as the show progressed. at the start, you've got this cancer-stricken patient taking on major drug cartels and slipping under the police force. by the end, you want hank to catch his man and walt getting every awful thing coming his way.

not impt but I misread frog's post and for some mysterious reason thought he meant full frontal Walt

and yes that scene with Hank is amazing, love how he goes Commando at the end

I've not watched BB for some years, but my instinct is that BCS's subtler character study structure is no match for the sheer power of its parent show's bulldozing narrative drive.

The thing I remember being most impressed with as the seasons unfolded was its fearlessness when it came to upending the status quo and raising the stakes, something very rare in long form TV. The Sopranos is of course brilliant, but is a pristine insect frozen in amber compared to BB's rampaging dinosuar.

My instinct is also that it won't hold up as well on a rewatch (very much unlike the Sopranos), but I'm certainly due one in the next few years.

I feel like Mad Men hasn't had quite the legacy or cultural impact which may have been predicted at one point, though I certainly loved it for at least three or four seasons.

The thing I remember being most impressed with as the seasons unfolded was its fearlessness when it came to upending the status quo and raising the stakes, something very rare in long form TV. The Sopranos is of course brilliant, but is a pristine insect frozen in amber compared to BB's rampaging dinosuar.

This is really otmfm and what I loved so much about BB. Every time I started to feel like I knew where things were going and settled in to watch them unfold, they would just kick into hyperdrive and get there immediately, pivoting in some new direction that prevented things from ever feeling stale. With the obvious exception being Hank figuring it out, which they kept as an insanely effective, agonizingly slow burn over practically the whole show (though then when he does finally figure it out, the way his interactions with Walt go immediately afterwards are a great example of the former approach).

I think BCS actually equalled the highs of BB in say seasons 2-3, when it was really its own thing with a major focus on the machinations of the legal world, doubling down on the character study structure that you note. But after Chuck died and they started having to focus on moving the drug plot forward and tying the threads together, with the clock ticking towards the end of the show, it became more of an inferior version of BB (though the peaks are still many and sublime).

These are just my recollections having never done a rewatch of either

It really lost its way for at least a season after Chuck died, agreed.

As for the peaks you mention - the mall heist episode in the final season is as exciting an hour of TV as any BB produced.

absolutely. really right from the beginning BCS was killer at those methodical, procedural stretches. With Jonathan Banks of course but also Odenkirk. Remembering when he was editing those documents to change the address on the Mesa Verde paperwork, it was almost like they were gleefully attacking the challenge of "how boring a series of actions can we make riveting if we film them beautifully enough and have them carried out by a maximally entertaining character"

there's a very good recent podcast called Best Quality Vacuum where they're rewatching and critiquing BB episode by episode. Well worth a listen. Amazing to think the first eps of BB came out 16 years ago and to consider how much America and the world have changed since

But after Chuck died and they started having to focus on moving the drug plot forward and tying the threads together, with the clock ticking towards the end of the show, it became more of an inferior version of BB (though the peaks are still many and sublime).

personally I dont think it was inferior at all. maybe because I found Jimmy/Saul to be a much more fun lead than Walter and Lalo to be a better villain than Gus. also the fact that it was not as heart-poundingly intense as BB was. though it did get there. I do agree though once they got to the "putting all the pieces together" stage it did become less compelling

Remembering when he was editing those documents to change the address on the Mesa Verde paperwork, it was almost like they were gleefully attacking the challenge of "how boring a series of actions can we make riveting if we film them beautifully enough and have them carried out by a maximally entertaining character"

been rewatching some of the Saul Goodman clips from BB and in one of the first ones where he's talking to Badger and mixes him up with a public masterbator he says something like "just a little transpositional error, nothing a little white out can't fix"...kinda wonder knowing these guys if the whole idea for that plot came from that line

Amazing

The blurring continues.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/04/americas/narcocorrido-mexico-bands-us-trump-intl-latam

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHF0xlf-bjY