Are You Watching This?
The second season of AMC’s Breaking Bad has begun. Bryan Cranston (yes, Hal the dad from Malcolm in the Middle) plays Walt, a sad-sack guy with terminal cancer and an unexpected baby on the way. Way overqualified as a high-school chemistry teacher, he decides to cook meth as a way to earn cash to leave to his family.
Cranston won a well-deserved Emmy for best actor in a drama for his work in season one. Season two’s first three episodes have all been exceptional television. Creator Vince Gilligan, who wrote many of the best X-Files episodes, focuses on the in-between actions and emotions that other mainstream shows gloss over. It’s riveting stuff. But don’t take my word for it. Stephen King rhapsodized about it recently, too, at Entertainment Weekly.
Edited to add: The prestigious Peabody awards, for excellence in electronic media, were announced, and Breaking Bad was one of only two prime time series to win an award (the other was Lost):
Bleak, harrowing, sometimes improbably funny, the series chronicled the consequences of a mild-mannered, dying science teacher’s decision to secure his family’s future by cooking methamphetamine.
April 1st, 2009 at 7:11 am
I vaguely recall hearing about this show, but I haven’t seen it. Sounds like I should put the first season on my Netflix queue…
April 10th, 2009 at 11:30 am
G Grod doesn’t like it; he thinks it’s too dark. But I think it’s the best thing on right now. It’s dark, but often funny.