June 2nd, 2009 | by AmyV | breaking bad, season finale
Jun
02
The season finale of Breaking Bad this week was basiclaly like a big ol’ punch in the face.
I don’t mean that in a bad way.
For weeks now, we’ve been teased with images of body bags, a charred pink teddy bear in the White family pool and men in haz-mat suits at their home.
Who was dead?
What blew up?
Did Walt really bring the meth-making into his home?
Were Skylar or – goodness, no! – the new baby killed?
And then, midway through the finale, whammo, the reality became brutally apparent.
May 22nd, 2009 | by AmyV | ratings, season
May
22
OK, I guess the TV seasons before most people had televisions were worse, but this season was for the birds, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
The four major networks (that’d be CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox – sorry CW) lost an average of 16 percent of viewership in the coveted “demo” – adults 18-49. That includes DVR use.
Fox was on top, followed by CBS, ABC and NBC. But “on top” still includes a steep drop.
Why is this?
A whole mess of things.
First off, a lot of people are watching online – legally and illegally (Hulu an example of the former, BitTorrent an example of the latter). I know some folks who don’t have televisions, even, and only watch what they like online.
Second, a lot of people watch on DVR, but not within that 7-day window included in ratings. For example, my husband and I haven’t watched Season 2 of Damages yet. The entire season is sitting there on our DVR. We just finished up the entire first seasons of Dollhouse and Better off Ted in a few days in marathon viewing sessions. (I’ll be writing about BoT in a couple days). I still have episodes of Reaper, the season finale of Supernatural and Sunday’s episode of Breaking Bad on my DVR, waiting for me to have a chance to sit down and watch ‘em.
April 23rd, 2009 | by AmyV | breaking bad
Apr
23
I never really thought Breaking Bad was light fare.
In fact, I thought it was one of the more intense shows on television, the story of a high school chem teacher whose insurance won’t cover the only treatment that might save him from dying of cancer. So he does what anyone in his situation would do, right?
He starts cooking crystal meth with a former student.
[Cue funky Breaking Bad theme twang.]
But the tagline is “The End Justifies the Extreme” and this season has been utterly extreme so far, never more so than the last couple of episodes.
Even Tuco’s utter insanity was mere prelude.
But you know what? I think it’s brilliant. We usually see the hapless pot dealers and the violent cocaine cartels. But even that cocaine violence sort of makes sense. It’s orderly in its own sort of way.
The violence on this show is so sudden, so schizophrenic, so … utterly startling and scary and â well, just look at Tuco and how he dealt so sensitively with his grandfather (and then so insanely).
The true cost of what Walter and Jesse (Jesse Jackson, was he high? Oh, wait – actually, he wasn’t, for a change.) are doing was heartbreaking in “Peekaboo,” where Spooge’s child was living in such horrible conditions that, as Jesse pointed out, he couldn’t even watch any decent TV.
March 16th, 2009 | by AmyV | big love, breaking bad
Mar
16
It had been a while since we had seen Scott on Big Love, and there he appeared last night, all sadness and apologies to Sarah that he hadn’t been around to help her get through the pregnancy and miscarriage.
As Ben punched Scott out last night, the estranged boyfriend seemed … more familiar than in the past.
“Is that the guy from Breaking Bad?” my husband asked.
I answered my husband as I am wont to do, with an offhanded, “Nah, no way.”
Then I paused, looked again. Nah, couldn’t be. By the end of the scene where Sarah and Scott were â ahem â being intimate, I knew it was indeed the hapless Jesse Pinkman from one of my favorite shows on TV, Breaking Bad.
There are two things that make Breaking Bad as awesome as it is: Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul. And Cranston won an Emmy for his awesomeness last year, so that one goes without saying.
So Aaron Paul is on not one, but two of my favorite shows.
On HBO, as Big Love hurtles toward an incredible season finale next weekend, Scott promises to figure prominently into Sarah’s life.
On AMC, Jesse and Walter just escaped from the insanely murderous (and now dead) Tico (they have Emmy awards for guest stars, no?) and from being discovered by Walter’s brother-in-law, Hank, who’s both a total hardass and a total softie.
