Media supplement: Breaking Bad

Having watched the entire five series run of BB in the two months running up to Christmas last year, I have been meaning to write about the immense pleasure it has given me. Then one night I was watching Family Guy when the following scene took place: Peter is watching TV in bed (a favourite activity of mine, hence you can see how much I identify with the obese one) when the opening credits of BB begin to roll. Then the announcer speaks and Peter is plunged into an hypnotic state of enhanced suggestibility:
Announcer: Breaking Bad is the greatest thing on TV ever, except possibly The Wire
Peter: Breaking Bad is the greatest thing on TV ever except possibly The Wire
Announcer: You will recommend Breaking Bad to all your friends
Peter: I will recommend Breaking Bad to all my friends
Announcer: You will never stop talking about Breaking Bad and The Wire
Peter: I will never stop talking about Breaking Bad and The Wire

Then I didn't feel so good. OMG, here was me, lampooned in a popular TV programme! No matter BB and The Wire are probably the best things to come out of American TV. Now I'd seen this I found myself in an embarrassing situation. Thing is, I do think BB is an example of TV drama at its zenith, but now Seth McFarlane has made fun of me and those of like mind, where do we go? The answer, I think, is bugger you Seth. I like it and I'm not afraid to say it. Having got that out of the way, let's talk.

To begin with, for those of you who haven't caught it yet, let me give you a quick synopsis. Walter White is an unassuming chemistry teacher who is diagnosed with lung cancer. He casts around for ideas to secure his family's future after he is gone, and by chance comes across a former student, Jessie Pinkman (brilliantly played by Aaron Paul) who has set up a methamphetamine lab in his RV. Appalled by his slipshod methods, Walter offers to show him how to do it properly. In no time they are producing meth of the highest quality which when it hits the street becomes highly sought after, and highly profitable. Before long the biggest meth distributor in the south-west (the series is set in Albuquerque) is trying to recruit Walter (who has now assumed the moniker of Heisenberg) to his own operation. Everything now begins to move with frightening speed, if you'll forgive the pun. Any more detail would threaten to spoil the plot, which is drawn with a masterful touch by the series' creator, Vince Gilligan. But I will say that there are some truly wonderful moments contained within a totally absorbing scenario. Like the day when everything gets too much for Jessie, who quits the operation and sinks into a serious meth addiction himself. The moment when Walter seeks him out in a flop house to rescue his young friend is like a descent into hell. Yet in the mind of sensitive, caring, middle class Walter there never seems to be a thought that he himself is contributing to this human carnage with the product he manufactures with such loving care. And here, for me, is the essence of the pull of BB. In Walter White we seem to have that rarest of creatures, the psychopath with a conscience, the monster with a heart of gold.

It is these contradictions which make it so compelling to watch. That and the acting. I have already mentioned Aaron Paul, but there is also Anna Gunn, who plays Walter's long-suffering wife, along with Dean Norris, who plays Walter's brother-in-law Hank. Oh, didn't I mention? Hank just happens a high level agent working with the New Mexico DEA, and he has dedicated his life to bringing Heisenberg down. Ironic, huh? And we shouldn't forget Bob Odenkirk, who plays the amoral lawyer Saul Goodman. They even built a spin-off series around him, though I don't know what happened to it. I suspect without the charisma of Heisenberg it died stillborn, but I could be wrong.

Finally, it would be wrong not to mention Bryan Cranston's astounding achievement in bringing Walter White to life. It is said even Anthony Hopkins rang him up at one point and congratulated him on what Hopkins considered to be the finest example of acting he'd ever seen in a TV programme. Now that's what I call a compliment...