Primed with shakers full of my favorite cocktail, ample quantities of Chinese take out and oodles of self indulgent stamina, I spent the better part of last weekend immersed in the first two seasons of AMC's Breaking Bad.
The show is a critical darling and it's easy to see why.
Terrific performances, penetrative writing, and adrenaline-fueled plot lines packaged with slick production values, assured directing and cinematic flourish, it makes for compelling viewing. The plot centers around a terminally ill and chronically underemployed high school chemistry teacher, Walter White, who decides that the only way he can pay for his cancer treatment and not leave his family destitute is to use his formidable scientific skills to make and sell crystal meth. Throw in the complications of a very pregnant and even more suspicious wife, a CP afflicted teenage son, a kleptomaniac sister-in-law and her crudely effective DEA husband and what ensues is the mother of all fish-out-of-water stories.
Still, it made for an oddly antiseptic viewing experience.
In this economy where PhDs deliver pizza to make ends meet and penny pinching insurance companies humiliate and impoverish us at our most vulnerable moments, we're meant to empathize with the lengths that someone as accomplished as Walter has to go to in order to die with any of his dignity and finances intact. Like many today, his intelligence and creativity are crushed by the confederacy of dunces that populate sub-divisions, schools, strip malls and board rooms from coast to coast. And as is the case with any anti-hero, we're pulling for him to succeed, to show the knuckle draggers who the real genius is.
Yet watching him deal with the inevitable murder and mayhem stemming from his burgeoning criminal enterprise is nothing we haven't seen depicted before. Someone as smart as Walter shouldn't necessarily be thrown by the revelations that drug dealers get killed and that laundering the proceeds of his sales is a logistical nightmare. Not anticipating the cost of doing business does make me think that he's unfamiliar with just about any gangster movie from the last 80 years or so, but that's not really where the series falls tantalizingly short of transcending it's crime drama roots. As entertaining and engrossing as the story lines are, plot seems to trump character development at every turn. The writers seem far more interested in concocting entertaining situations along than delving into the inner workings of the players in this particular morality tale. And yes, inventive plot structure is necessary, but like the truly scary addicts in Albuquerque, NM (a bumbling couple of ATM thieves are particularly memorable), I greedily want more.
Comparisons are odious and hardly fair, but just to single out a few of my personal favorites: The Sopranos was a character study masquerading as a mafia soap opera; Deadwood depicted the profane, brilliant lack of impulse control upon which the world's fortunes rise and fall; The Wire was a scalable depiction of motive, elemental nature and ambition (ok, so I'm a homer on this one). AMC's own Mad Men delivers profund historical and societal commentary, filtered through themes of relentless self invention. Watching these dramas unfold felt excruciating, exquisite, exhilarating and so very personal.
Which is not to say that I'm bashing Breaking Bad. It's very good for what it is. The story moves along at a lively clip, the cinematography and locations are superb and even occasionally breathtaking. There are hilarious homages to classic film images, memorable riffs of sparkling dialogue, and one of the more powerful depictions of the dissolution of the husband-wife dynamic that I've ever seen. The series brims with curious revelations and a wickedly cynical world view. Not to mention that the on-screen chemistry between Walter and his slacker sidekick Jesse is the stuff of which casting directors' wet dreams are made.
I don't have to be under the influence to recommend the show though. It may not be groundbreaking, but it's great television.
In this economy where PhDs deliver pizza to make ends meet and penny pinching insurance companies humiliate and impoverish us at our most vulnerable moments, we're meant to empathize with the lengths that someone as accomplished as Walter has to go to in order to die with any of his dignity and finances intact. Like many today, his intelligence and creativity are crushed by the confederacy of dunces that populate sub-divisions, schools, strip malls and board rooms from coast to coast. And as is the case with any anti-hero, we're pulling for him to succeed, to show the knuckle draggers who the real genius is.
Yet watching him deal with the inevitable murder and mayhem stemming from his burgeoning criminal enterprise is nothing we haven't seen depicted before. Someone as smart as Walter shouldn't necessarily be thrown by the revelations that drug dealers get killed and that laundering the proceeds of his sales is a logistical nightmare. Not anticipating the cost of doing business does make me think that he's unfamiliar with just about any gangster movie from the last 80 years or so, but that's not really where the series falls tantalizingly short of transcending it's crime drama roots. As entertaining and engrossing as the story lines are, plot seems to trump character development at every turn. The writers seem far more interested in concocting entertaining situations along than delving into the inner workings of the players in this particular morality tale. And yes, inventive plot structure is necessary, but like the truly scary addicts in Albuquerque, NM (a bumbling couple of ATM thieves are particularly memorable), I greedily want more.
Comparisons are odious and hardly fair, but just to single out a few of my personal favorites: The Sopranos was a character study masquerading as a mafia soap opera; Deadwood depicted the profane, brilliant lack of impulse control upon which the world's fortunes rise and fall; The Wire was a scalable depiction of motive, elemental nature and ambition (ok, so I'm a homer on this one). AMC's own Mad Men delivers profund historical and societal commentary, filtered through themes of relentless self invention. Watching these dramas unfold felt excruciating, exquisite, exhilarating and so very personal.
Which is not to say that I'm bashing Breaking Bad. It's very good for what it is. The story moves along at a lively clip, the cinematography and locations are superb and even occasionally breathtaking. There are hilarious homages to classic film images, memorable riffs of sparkling dialogue, and one of the more powerful depictions of the dissolution of the husband-wife dynamic that I've ever seen. The series brims with curious revelations and a wickedly cynical world view. Not to mention that the on-screen chemistry between Walter and his slacker sidekick Jesse is the stuff of which casting directors' wet dreams are made.
I don't have to be under the influence to recommend the show though. It may not be groundbreaking, but it's great television.
