Shall we anticpate the AMC series "Breaking Bad"? I think I may.

god i am so psyched. the great thing is i believe the actors 100% when they say how good it's going to be.

Some interesting stuff in this
http://www.newsweek.com/2011/06/26/breaking-bad-the-finest-hour-on-television.html#

Big ol' NYT Magazine piece on the show. Starts with talk about a scene being filmed for this season but doesn't appear to be too spoilerish after that but even so, approach as you choose.

dunno if this is mentioned upthread since I don't want to read spoilers but if you've got AMC On Demand you can watch season 3 now.

hey hey factoid from the newsweek piece re jesse: Paul in particular has blossomed in recent years, transforming his character from a rather one-dimensional brat (who was originally scheduled to die early on) into what Gilligan calls the “moral center” of the show.

^^^ spoiler in a universe where biff is married to marty's mum

its funny cause i think a few times up thread weve been speculating abt the future of the show and been all no way theyll ever kill jesse

I think it's a real possibility.

"He can imagine a fifth season of “Breaking Bad,” but that’s it."

I thought this was the last one...

newsweek says he can imagine a 6th season

"I don't know, I can imagine quite a bit."

no way theyll ever kill jesse

If Jesse gets bumped off, Walter will be just the man for the job.

He started backtracking on the number of seasons right after last year's finale. I'm conflicted.

As a fan of The Sopranos until the very end, I can't say I have much of a problem with him extending the show a bit if he feels he needs or wants to.

I think I read someone in the cast saying it couldn't really go past 5.

HURRY HANDS OF TIME HURRY

We just finished rewatching previous seasons in preparation and Jesse as moral center is what makes the end of season 3 so devastating, IMO.

Also <3 when Saul calls Jesse "Hip Hop."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/10/magazine/the-dark-art-of-breaking-bad.html?hpw

some p interesting stuff in that article, not so much about the show but about the reaction to the show & the audience breakdown

it sorta makes sense that new mexico would love this show

I wonder if ny/la really are the top markets for mad men. I have no idea how these things work.

ive said this before but one of the things i love abt this show is where its set and how fully it inhabits it

I have no "problem," per se, with show creators extending their run past the promised or threatened end, but more often or not that means they lose control of the narrative and rarely stick the landing. "Sopranos" is a perfect case in point. Even if you liked the final episode, the preceding seasons were pretty slack, rambling and erratic in terms of narrative. Chase was the king of laying down more track for the money train to roll further.

Last season was made up as they went along. That doesn't mean it can't (and won't) go off the rails at some point, but last season earns the man some credit.

that's about BB, not Sopranos

yeah it still blows my mind that season 3 was completely done as they went along

I seem to remember an interview from around the time of S3 in which V. Gilligan suggested that he thought the narrative could most likely fit mostly into four seasons w/ the possibility of an abbreviated fifth season in case any spillover needed to be accounted for. Given how far along we are at this point in Walt's downward spiral, the idea of three more whole seasons seems pretty excessive imo. I trust Gilligan, though, ultimately - even if some of the S2 stuff was pretty heavy-handed (a minor complaint, as far as I am concerned)

I have no "problem," per se, with show creators extending their run past the promised or threatened end, but more often or not that means they lose control of the narrative and rarely stick the landing. "Sopranos" is a perfect case in point. Even if you liked the final episode, the preceding seasons were pretty slack, rambling and erratic in terms of narrative. Chase was the king of laying down more track for the money train to roll further.

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, July 12, 2011 2:46 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

there's a big difference though - sopranos was open-ended to begin with. BB has just had this one, extremely narrow focus from the outset: what will be the consequences of walt's decision to sell meth?

even if it ends up having just as many seasons as the sopranos, BB is like a novella, compared w/sopranos' multivolume epic

Sopranos may or may not have been open ended, but Chase more than once gave a "that's it" alert before HBO convinced him to do another season or two. Mad Men dude has been that way, too.

TBH, I'm not sure what the focus of BB is, exactly. It's sure not "what will be the consequences of walt's decision to sell meth?" because so far there really have been no immediate consequences. Though I guess his bro in law wouldn't have been shot if he wasn't out looking for Walk, but that's still pretty loose. I suppose the focus of BB is really "how far can a square twist his morality to suit his selfish interests" and/or "how deep can he bring down the people around him."

Personally, I really want to know what's going on with the sister's shoplifting addiction recover. Really. No, like, seriously. For real.

OK, not for real.

"because so far there really have been no immediate consequences."

Uh he's killed four people, lied to and nearly broke apart his family, completely fucked up his marginally messed up former student's life, been threatened with death numerous times, and is now going to be living the rest of his presumably pretty short life looking over his shoulder for the axe. I'd say those are consequences.

Walt himself has done pretty well so far. He's rich, he still has his family, he beat terminal cancer for god's sake (paid for by the drug money, no less). What makes this a TV show and not real life is that he's made it this far with so few consequences. Complications, sure. But the "consequence" of killing those people is that it made his life safer! And no indication so far that any of this malevolent behavior is wearing particularly hard on his soul.

I do hope they don't pull a "Sons of Anarchy" and kidnap his baby, though that would be yet another easy way to avoid incorporating the otherwise MIA infant into the show.

My prediction: at some point there will be a season of Walt hiding down in Mexico.

seriously this is rubbish about consequences, is he not changing as a person, is every relationship in his life not being infected by his crimes and actions? did he not just narrowly escape being executed? as well as all the killings.

if you think there are no consequences to walt's behaviour i feel like you're missing the central crux of the show, the total decay of this person.

Yeah but he's rich now so it's all cool.

But he started out a horrible person! There's been no decay! He's more or less been an ass since he started cooking meth. If he stopped right now and relocated, what would be different?

He has his health, he still has his family, he's got money, he doesn't need to work. I suppose now he has enemies, but that particular consequence only came up at the end of S3. Maybe S4 is when the shit kicks in. But really, saying Walt is struggling with any real consequences is like saying Tony Soprano was beset by consequences. Bullshit. It was business as usual from ep one, and BB really isn't that different.

That's why I and others have stressed Jesse as the moral fulcrum of the show. He's the only one who's showed any real moral decay, or at least the only one who seems to recognize it.

Now, one could make an argument that BB is about the viewer struggling with Walt's actions...

http://jubeegankin.bigmandan.com/Princeisdisgusted.gif

I don't care if I'm the context, I can never see the drive-by sneering enough!!!!! :)

saying Walt is struggling with any real consequences is like saying Tony Soprano was beset by consequences

think you're mistaking "conscience" with "consequence"

Perhaps. I mean, Walt kills someone in the first episode, so there hasn't been much moral decay since then. But in terms of real consequences, said consequences are so endemic to his line of work that I don't really consider them consequences. It'd be like watching a show where someone becomes a cop, and a "consequence" is that he shoots someone or is shot at. Well, yeah.

yes it's a show about where someone becomes a meth dealer, and the consequences are that lots of horrible debasing shit, as well as money. it may be true that walt is ignoring these or morally unaffected by them but that doesn't mean they don't exist. of course there are consequences, his marriage, his life, everyone else in the entire show is being dragged through the shit by walt's actions, they wrote this so heavily into the show's dna that he even caused a plane crash.

otm. dude caused a plane crash, i mean c'mon.

Don't sell drugs, you might cause plane crashes

ah come on now, it was a narrative tool to tell you WALT IS A LEAKING BARREL OF EVIL TOXIC WASTE.

plus you don't think they're setting him up for utter doom? cos i think that's pretty much inevitable.

Josh my point is that BB has a very tight narrative focus that runs all the way through each season. There aren't even any real subplots as such - all the "B" stories are directly connected in a practical way with Walt's "A" story. It barrels along relentlessly. The Sopranos wasn't like that. When Walt's meth story becomes exhausted, as it must, it will end.

And in that respect BB is less ambitious than the Sopranos (but I think is ultimately a more entertaining show because of it)

yeah tbh how much time has even passed in breaking bad, it doesn't feel like that much.

sometimes an ep continues direct from the last, timewise.