Not that long ago, AMC was one of those cable channels that everybody knew, and nobody ever watched. Well, maybe Martin Scorsese tuned in for obscure 30’s noir, but that was pretty much it. A year or two ago, they decided to take the “Classics” out of “American Movie Classics” and broadened their horizons. Once you start showing Catwoman, you’ve turned a corner. This summer, AMC started airing original programming. Programming which was not in any way related to movies. Their first attempt was the drama Mad Men, which won two Golden Globes. Now, they’ve unveiled their second series, the dark comedy Breaking Bad.
Breaking Bad stars Bryan Cranston (Malcolm in the Middle, Seinfeld) as Walter White, a chemistry teacher recently diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. In order to provide for his family, Walter decides to start selling crystal meth. Like I said, it’s a dark comedy.
On the surface, Bad would seem to share some similarities with Weeds, Showtime’s suburban pot comedy. However, where Weeds tends to be facile and emotionally flat, Breaking Bad pulls you right into Walter’s darkness. And, for me, the weakest part of Weeds is a lack of motivation. It presents dealing drugs as her only option, when really she’s a woman with marketable skills who lives in a wealthy neighborhood. This is somebody who has options and has chosen not to exercise them. Without exploring that, she comes off as unsympathetic and lazy. Breaking Bad, on the other hand, establishes a believable, if not entirely rational, reason for Walter’s new career. With a pregnant wife (Deadwood’s Anna Gunn), and a teenage son with cerebral palsy, Walter can barely provide for them by working two jobs. He’s almost out of time and he wants, more than anything, to take care of his family.
The genius of the premise is that Walter’s chemistry experience makes him the ideal person to cook up quality crystal meth. Still, that doesn’t mean he knows how to distribute or sell it. He works with dealer Jesse, one of his former students. The first three episodes have focused on the repercussion of his disastrous first attempt to find a buyer, an attempt which climaxed with Walter poisoning two rival dealers in self-defense.
Bryan Cranston is absolutely fantastic in the lead. He’s done great work on a variety of series over the years, and his best work has been as seemingly normal guys with a creepy, manic edge. Witness Hal’s occasional breakdowns on Malcolm in the Middle, or Seinfeld’s sex offender dentist, Tim Watley. Walter White fits that mold, but unlike the others, he’s been pushed by extraordinary circumstances. And my favorite bit of the character is the way they’ve avoided the obvious cliché. He isn’t secretly enjoying his new life. He’s not hooked on the adrenaline of drug dealing. This is something he legitimately does not want to be doing, and it really works.
Breaking Bad is not for the squeamish. The most recent episode featured Walter and Jesse cleaning up after a, well, bathtub incident. Specifically, Jesse’s failed stab at disposing of a body. It turns out, you can dissolve a human body in acid, but you shouldn’t do it in the bathtub. Trust me, you really shouldn’t.
Created by Vince Gilligan, the man responsible for some of the best of The X-Files, Breaking Bad is the kind of series HBO really should be showing. Like Mad Men, it’s the sort of bold, genre-breaking show that used to define HBO. In fact, I get the feeling that Breaking Bad may have been specifically developed for HBO – the premiere was an hour long with no commercials, unusual for AMC. In addition, there’s been some censored dialogue and blurred nudity, almost as if it had been written for a channel without restrictions on sex and language. If that’s true, HBO dropped the ball yet again. These days, AMC is the place to go for innovative quality programming.
Breaking Bad is stunning, fascinating, upsetting, and hilarious. It’s some of the best television out there.
Score: Five out of Five Beans
