BREAKING BAD vs MAD MEN

I think Albuquerque reveals its secrets over time. It's def. the Los Angeles of New Mexico haha

I like Hung because I can watch it half-asleep or while doing other things

Also not "cultureless" at all, imho. Quite the opposite.

I have fallen asleep twice to 'Hung'.

i love both of these shows and i'm excited for mad men s4, but the last couple eps of breaking bad s3 are still fresh in my mind and seemed like the best tv ever. with mad men i mostly just remember how much i want to make out with don. i don't have a real good memory.

I've been watching the mad men best of shit that's been running on bravo for the last month or whatever and last wknd I watched the eps on a high def set and it made everything, including the camerawork, look way more shoddy and fake that I ever thought it could

maybe season 3 was lacking in that department or something

breaking bad, I think

no, mad men

no, breaking bad

ugh

― alberto cat6ador (cozen), Wednesday, July 21, 2010 6:56 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark

MM is never sleep-deprivingly exhilirating as BB. But everything about it has been impeccable from S1, which isn't the case with BB, which even in its current era of greatness has the odd clumsy line or character beat or whatever.

MM gets extra points for my having followed it since its very first UK airing.

lets see breaking bad is fucking awesome and i hate mad men so this is kind of easy

I think I see where this poll is going

s1ocki otm - I was saying this to wifey just last week. Hung, y'all! It's set in suburban Detroit!!

They film at least part of it here too -- my husband worked as an extra for a couple of days. We still have never watched it though, it sounds pretty bad.

It's not THAT bad, it just isn't very good.

feel like BB NM locale says something abt the world that couldnt really be articulated elsewhere

Right, ultimately my head says MM and my heart says BB. Gotta go with the heart really. This is serious Sophie's Choice stuff though.

if I were to put these shows head to head season by season (ranked by awesomeness):

BB 3 = MM 2
BB 2 < MM 1
BB1 < MM 3

So Mad Men it is. It's really the scope that edges it, even considering that Breaking Bad was hampered by the strike in its first season.

Hung, y'all! It's set in suburban Detroit!!

Well, so was Home Improvement (Keego Harbor), but that didn't make it good.

Am kind of curious to see Hung anyway now (never even heard of it before), even though I assume it'll stink. What suburb is it set in, exactly? Do they say?

(Fwiw, I like that Big Love, Army Wives, and Friday Night Lights aren't set in LA or NY, but with Mad Men, NY doesn't bug me.)

These are the two best shows on TV. Seriously can't decide, but watched last season of BB more recently so probably that...

Haha, I was wondering when Alex would show up. I thought "this poll will blow his MIND"

BB by a considerable margin.

having read all this can't help but feel this pair off is solely due to acclaim/popularity...shouldn't be a choice.

They're also both shown on AMC in the US, which probably encourages the comparison. Vince Gilligan says he watches Mad Men a lot because he feels like it is a sister show. What channels broadcast these in the UK?

ime everyone downloads....but the two shows are so different. i dunno...why compare anything, they're not sports teams.

They are very different, as I think we have proved.

comparing things is fun and helps one articulate one's feelings about either or both of those things

in the context of 'tv shows on tv' theyre surely more similar than different

never seen Breaking Bad but I do adore NM. Like, love it to a ridiculous extreme. Wish I could move there :/

Oh...me too!

i think i'll go with breaking bad. watching all three complete seasons in a row was exhilarating. also really connected with the characters for some reason. a lot of them remind me of people i know.

mad men is great, though.

general question: how does amc have the money to fund these shows? they seem like they'd both be really expensive.

they actually make and sell the meth from breaking bad

how do they advertise the goods tho

wikipedia sez breaking bad costs $3m an episode?? surely they aren't recouping that

this show could be so much better. all the wife-in-therapy stuff... i mean.. really? already? they should really have pulled an ER and just shown the working world, it's SO much more interesting. as it stands they don't really do that stuff too well either.

― s1ocki, Friday, August 17, 2007 1:30 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

and all that divorced-mom-with-volkswagen stuff is so pandering. yes we know times were changing.

― s1ocki, Friday, August 17, 2007 1:30 PM (2 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

i wonder if reading some of the orig Mad Men thread before ever watching the show somewhat ruined any chance of really liking it, because i've been watching the first season lately and mostly keep thinking about ^^ these posts and others like them, which are otm.

also i was pretty appalled that MM felt the need to explain the title of the show w/ a little caption at the beginning of the first episode. the whole thing kind of feels spoonfed in that way, more of a wikipedia entry come to life than great storytelling.

I wouldn't go that far, but sure.

We should do Breaking Bad vs. Inception

funny how i really turned around on MM tho

yeah...did things happen that pulled you in later or do you like those early episodes a lot more now too?

i think the former, i feel like the show just had a really slow awkward start that may have been weirdly on purpose

what really got me was ep 4 actually, the really pete-centric one, that was just great

I think mad men has gotten better each season. the few times I've tried to watch season 1 again, it felt clunky.

characters have gotten more compelling as the show has gone on, too. they painted with a broad brush at first.

anyway, BB for me.

What channels broadcast these in the UK?

Mad Men is shown on the BBC, albeit the 'arts' channel BBC4, and latterly late night on BBC2. As for Breaking Bad, the first season was hidden away last year on little watched digital channel Five USA. I rented the DVDs of BB instead. I'm intrigued by how well further seasons of BB have been received. I've added BB s2 to my rental list.

Season 2 of BB was on Five USA as well.

homosexual II, you need to watch BB

I don't know how well BB was received in the UK, but the fact that that Five USA showed season 2 over consecutive nights at midnight over the xmas & new year holiday makes me think that maybe they were just trying to get rid of it. I'm not holding my breath for season 3, looks like I'll have to rent the DVDs.

To be fair, that's better treatment than The Wire got from British TV on its first run.

funny how i really turned around on MM tho

― al-goreda (s1ocki), Wednesday, July 21, 2010 11:38 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah...did things happen that pulled you in later or do you like those early episodes a lot more now too?

― this. right here. is my. new LMBO (some dude), Wednesday, July 21, 2010 11:46 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

the opening of the mad men thread is compelling for demonstrating the limits of critic thinking - what does one do when presented w/an engaging work of art - panic, grasp, spout - its funny tho for all the complaints everyone seemed to have kept watching