The Liz Smith Column | 06/07/2009 11:00 pm

Liz Smith: 'Breaking Bad' – Am I the Only One Watching This Great Show?!

Our Gossip Girl clues you in to the best show you’re not watching.

Image courtesy of AMC

Season three premieres on AMC in the first quarter of 2010, but that’s a long wait and I simply can’t imagine how the writers will carry on with this impossible story. Viewers did pick up by 12% in season two. But why haven’t the many awards won by this show been translated to the public?

"Breaking Bad" won an Emmy for Bryan Cranston as best actor in a drama back in 2007/2008. It won a Peabody during season one. It won an AFI award as one of the top ten shows in 2008. It won a Writer’s Guild Award for Vince Gilligan in 2008. It was a best-edited one-hour series for Lynne Willingham for 2008. And Bryan Cranston won best actor again from the Satellite Awards. And yet none of my high-brow – or even my low-brow – friends seemed to know about this great show as they face my enthusiasm blankly.

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I feel I could write until Doomsday – and Doomsday hangs over every episode of "Breaking Bad" – and I wouldn’t have moved ten readers to react as hundreds did the other day on the wOw site in their touching rave fantasies about "American Idol’s" Adam Lambert. What can I do? Buy young Aaron Paul a guitar or give him a singing lesson so he can go on "Idol"? Were he in a feature film, he’d already have been nominated for an Academy Award.

OK, as Shakespeare would say, our revels now are ended and I probably haven’t impressed you. But I just had to get my enthusiasm for "Breaking Bad" off my chest. Even so, I’ll never take off my "BB" wristwatch from Bryan Cranston, except to bathe.

22 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

I love this show. One cannot say enough good things about the story line, characters, acting….

But ( and it’s a big issue for me), what was a story about a desperate man, doing desperate things, in a desperate situation, changed with what happened to Aaron Paul’s girlfriend. Before, it was someone caught up in a situation, way out of his depth and trying not to drown. The act with the girlfriend changed all that and now it just looks like greed and power. I lost all my sympathy for Brian’s character, on that episode.

So, I never even watched the entire pink, singed bear episode. I’m not sure I want to follow, where the show seems to be going, now.

Having said all that, it really is the best darn TV on TV, right now.

By Warrior Princess on 06/08/2009 12:17 am

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I have been facinated by this well written show as well and disturbed about the second to last episode as you were Warrior…it’s an interesting dilema what happened to the girl friend in that story, I would have hoped I would have reacted differently.

By Tee Zee on 06/08/2009 11:03 am

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I just started watching this show when i had my surgery! i rented the first season. I thought the same thing… "why have i never heard of this??". it’s one of the best written best acted TV shows around. it’s right up there with the sopranos, deadwood and californication. I did however… have a difficult time the first half of the first season because Cranstons character Walt is very very hard to care about at first. He was soooo freaking whiny and pathetic that I struggled through. But kudos to the writing and acting as I kept watching. Then Walt finally develops some traits beyond being pathetic and it became brilliant.

By Chrome Toe on 06/08/2009 8:08 am

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Is Aaron Paul the character that plays Jesse? if he is… I agree he’d have already had an academy award. When i was bored with Walts character the first few episodes (because of his patheticness) Jesse kept me watching. But then… my background is parole and probation. I was blown away at his absolute SPOT ON portrait of so many young criminals i’d worked with. he portrayed the vulnerability along with the perfect criminal thinking that I saw in these kids. I KNEW that person a hundred times over the years.

By Chrome Toe on 06/08/2009 8:13 am

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Liz ( mes),

Thought I was the only fan, I DVR each week. Cranston is the best.

Norris as the DEA is perfect. However Aaron Paul as the helper should have better writing. No one who has been around the trade as long as he has would sit around a room with a DOA and bag full of money. He would have been long gone.

Story sometime scares me. I was so close to ending up leading a life like this 30 years ago. Someone saved me from prison or a fate worse, leading a life as these actors portray each week.

~red ant

By sloan ss on 06/08/2009 8:17 am

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"Breaking Bad" is outrageously good. But have turned off cable since its first season ($1K per year is too much for what I watched), so will catch the new shows when they come out on DVD. It’s about the same caliber as "The Shield," which has already had its final season.

By rocky rocky on 06/08/2009 8:23 am

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Great show and excellent cast.

By Janice Bertram on 06/08/2009 9:20 am

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Love this show. The directing/camera work is outstanding. Always love the opening segment. The opening and close for the season finale were the bomb.

By Alan Farago on 06/08/2009 10:14 am

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I’m also relieved Anna Gunn’s character Skyler finally had thier baby girl.

I was begining to think she was terminally pregnant for nearly two seasons!

By Tee Zee on 06/08/2009 11:11 am

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I totally agree with you, Liz. Breaking Bad…I didn’t understand the name until season two. It constantly tests your belief system, and it’s TV, I know I can’t believe I am writing this, but I am. The writing is amazing and the acting is seamless. I love this show.

By maxxine kaufman on 06/08/2009 11:51 am

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Liz, Thank you for bringing up this great show! Not to nit pick but the story takes place in New Mexico and the major distributor owns chicken restaurants. The acting is fantastic and I am glad they have shown actions lead to consequences. Cannot wait for season 3.

By J Holmes on 06/08/2009 2:27 pm

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oh man… wow… you need to put a spoiler alert on this thread! for those of us buying the dvd’s (I’m only on season 1)!!!

By Chrome Toe on 06/08/2009 3:08 pm

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Dear Miss Smith,

I was wondering if you have had the chance to review, "Beautiful People", the new comedy on LOGO, a, "regular riot Alice", Simon is the famed window dresser from England, who ended up at Barneys. Boy can I relate, girlfriend.

Love Ya!! Joeleen

"Breaking Bad", with Brian Cranston is terrific, it is so intense though I really can only take it in trailer type doses. "Mr. Cranston takes that character to the max."

By Joel Deacon on 06/08/2009 4:16 pm

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It is so cool about getting the watch from Brian Cranston. I tell everyone I see about this show. Most of them have no idea what I am talking about and the one person who did said they would not watch it because of the subject matter. This show is not about the glorification of a certain lifestyle, but about the effect on a person’s basic morals when trying to deal with changes that occur in that person’s life, and the unintended consequences of the decisions that are made by that person. Also, it’s about how a person can dig themselves in a hole so deep that they might have to sell their soul to the devil to get out of it. It is so well written, I find it hard to describe to anyone. It really is the best show on television. The first season was full of surprises and moral dilemmas, not just from the main characters, but from some of the minor characters as well. There is not a bad actor on this show. I can’t say enough good things about it. I was so entranced by the show that when the second season rolled around and I no longer had cable, I paid to download it from i-Tunes. It was well worth it. There seem to be no "gimmicks" and so it is difficult to predict what will happen next. Please spread the word to watch this show so that it stays on the air forever!

By Nadene Cicero on 06/08/2009 5:42 pm