Breaking Bad
Created By: Vince Gilligan
Starring: Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul, Anna Gunn, and Dean Norris
Writers: Vince Gilligan, Peter Gould, Geogre Mastras, Sam Catlin, John Shiban, Moira Walley-Beckett, J. Roberts, Gennifer Hutchison, and Thomas Schnauz.
Directors: Andrew Bernstein, Michelle Maxwell MacLaren, Vince Gilligan, Colin Bucksey, Bryan Cranston, Johan Renck, Terry McDonough, and Michael Slovis
I don’t write about it often, but I try and keep up with a number of shows. There are television shows that accomplish a lot in their serialized hours, and much of the best that the moving image has to offer is now seen in the comfort of our homes. Mad Men has revitalized the cultural legacy of the Man in the Gray Flannel Suit era. Parks and Recreation has found a constant source for satire in small town government with its amazing ensemble of comedians. And many of the best shows are complete and now on DVD, including the politically charged Battlestar Galatica, the depressingly hilarious Party Down, and the short-lived sci-fi western Firefly (I have yet to sit down with David Simon’s expansive crime drama The Wire, but plan to…eventually).
All of these shows are reimagining the television as a writer’s medium for delivering smart comedies and dramas that speak to our age. However, none are doing it as well, and with such audacity, as Vince Gilligan’s Breaking Bad, which is now returning to AMC for its fourth season. Breaking Bad has a smaller scope than many of the other shows that have been canonized by television gurus, but its intimacy with its characters has allowed it to transcend its premise and deliver some of the most intense, though-provoking, and morally challenging television ever produced.
