Why is Breaking Bad Considered to be the Best Fictional TV Show?

When I talk about Breaking Bad, I feel that I’m not just talking about a great TV show; I’m talking about something that overpasses that, becoming a masterpiece in its own right. Why is that, you might ask? Why is ‘Breaking Bad’ the masterpiece that it is, and why, to this day, does it continue to be considered the best fictional TV show of all time? Today, I’m going to try and answer this question, and delve into the reasons behind why Breaking Bad is the show that fans say they will always go back to; years after its debut.

I’m currently in the process of watching the show for the fourth time, and with every episode, I’m left speechless at the stunning quality of storytelling. Breaking Bad introduces us to a high-school chemistry teacher named Walter White, who is diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer and resorts to manufacturing and selling methamphetamine to secure his family’s future. That’s it. That’s the story. Sounds ridiculous, right? That’s one of the reasons people love it. Vince Gilligan, the writer of the show, took an idea that was irrevocably simple, and quite frankly, looked externally unmanageable, and turned it into a huge success. This idea of simplicity is becoming increasingly important in creating modern television and film, as the predictability of extravagance can only capture people's attention for so long. Walter White, or should I say, his alter ego, 'Heisenberg,' is arguably one of the best TV antagonists of all time. Walt, played by Bryan Cranston, started as a perfectly flawed, yet mostly morally correct protagonist, who, despite his regretful, bitter view of his life’s success, endeavours to do the right thing by those he loves. The irony being that after resorting to such extreme measures to protect and provide for his family, he ends up leaving them at their most vulnerable. In short, Gilligan was able to gradually build up Walt from a flawed protagonist to a well-grounded antagonist over sixty episodes, and yet we still can’t work out whether he’s an anti-hero, or a fully fledged villain. We see him transform into a meth-kingpin before our own eyes, but even at the end of the series, we find that we are still rooting for the character we’ve watched transform and grow. Some fans say that Walter White ‘feels real’ which is certainly a contributing factor to the show’s character appeal. Despite the unwieldy nature of his journey, he still becomes someone that we can all relate to in one way or another; a character who will inevitably go down in TV history.

You can’t discuss Walt, however, without mentioning Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), his former student, and partner in the meth business. Jesse is often considered to be neither morally correct or corrupt and lives in the borderline between two worlds, wrestling with his conscience. Walt and Jesse create a dynamic duo unlike anything I’ve ever seen before on television; such an unlikely partnership, fuelled by loyalty, respect, hatred, but even, arguably, love, at times. After watching Breaking Bad multiple times, I find it’s still hard to come to a conclusion about the nature of Walt and Jesse’s relationship, which is another reason I think the show reaches completely new heights; it's simply complicated. Walt evidently manipulates Jesse, but seems to come to view him as his adopted son as the show progresses, striving to do right by him, but often failing, due to his own encompassing self-interest. A viewer summed it up by saying that the relationship between Walt and Jesse is not merely business partners, friends, or enemies. It goes much deeper than that. Walt and Jesse created a relationship of their own, and I couldn't agree more. The acting from both Cranston and Paul, throughout the show's seasons, is faultless. Sometimes when I’m watching, I struggle to comprehend that I’m watching actors, rather than people playing a role; it’s captivating, and a real pleasure to experience.

What I’ve established so far is that Breaking Bad’s success comes largely from the nature of characterisation and audience participation, and what I mean by this is our constant questioning around what’s going to happen next, the suspense, and the nature of the character’s morals. It’s a show that tests our own mental boundaries. One minute we’re rooting for Walt, but the next minute we start questioning his tactics, wondering if anyone, in the end, is going to escape his wrath. I think when you get round to re-watch the show, you really start to appreciate the unravelling of this complex, yet extremely satisfying storyline, and start thinking about Gilligan’s writing process, that goes beyond a simple written script. I spent time contemplating whether Breaking Bad would ever have been as successful as a book, or a novel, and the answer is simply no. There's something oddly poetic about some of the spoken lines in Breaking Bad, but equally there's something just as poetic about the way the character's can display such intense emotions on screen with no more than a look; a look that proves to me that the show was destined to be a huge success from the very beginning.

Breaking Bad's visuals are stunning, and for a TV show to be exceptional, it needs to have the perfect combination of elements, and whilst visuals don’t seem that important, they provide a completely new layer of meaning to what’s on the screen. The directors were fans of using different camera angles, and hence, you were able to see many different perspectives. When a TV show uses the camera angle from the perspective of a fly, I think you know you have reached peak levels of innovation! Along with providing new perspectives, the camera angles provide Breaking Bad with its originality, in my opinion. There are, undoubtedly, plenty of shows with character dynamics similar to the likes of Walt and Jesse, and plenty of shows with a fantastic script and storytelling, but the production of Breaking Bad, carries some of its most truly memorable moments.

Breaking Bad is underpinned by the prospect of chemistry, and cleverly interweaves this with the structure and development of the two main characters, and as Walt says in the first episode, he likes to see chemistry as “the study of change.” This simple act of change provides us with a TV show that I think will be hard to stand up against in the future, and I’m yet to see anything that overpasses it. Despite Walter White’s change from “Mr Chips, to Scarface," in the words of Gilligan, I think the ability to shake Breaking Bad from its throne will be one of the most challenging tasks in the future of television.

Below is a video I created as a tribute to the show, with the song 'Lights' by Interpol. Here is the link through YouTube too, for ease of access. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTnDjVwcATQ

In 2017, just after I'd finished watching the show for the very first time, I did another tribute video, to the song 'DLZ' by TV on the Radio, which was inspired by hearing the song in the show. Feel free to have a look at this one also. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5w9laPK7srY