The first episode of Breaking Bad was close to a masterpiece. It was probably the best script for TV I ever read. You cannot even begin to dream of how well it was written. For a fun exercise compare that script to the Pilot script for The Americans.
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Is this the same script? I want to read it.
First episode of The Beast in Me on Netflix was quality, looking forward to more of it.
I canât find my version of it but thatâs probably it
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Iâm torn. The story has me sold, but the Claire Danes cry face picked up right where it left off in Homeland. By the end sheâd turned Homeland into a hate watch and her character here seems to have the same range. Iâll keep watching, but wish it were anyone but her in the role.
I havenât seen even a single moment of Homeland, maybe thatâs helping me. Matthew Rhys is highly underrated.
Iâm currently re-watching the Americans with my parents
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Itâs hard to be a 5 time Emmy nominee with one win and be considered underrated. I also think heâs a great actor but there is a 0.0 chance I watch because I canât stand Claire and really havenât liked her style since Polish Wedding.
Rhys is my first choice casting for a part in my show. Not sure if heâd be interested because the character would do a lot more sitting in silence than talking. He just looks amazingly similar to the real guy and can do absolutely everything the role would call for (Perry Mason was what actually convinced me he had the full range). But heâs busy and my partner could not be moving anymore slowly.
Crazy to think how much the show struggled until Netflix.
AMC still had doubts. The network told Gilligan around 2010 that season 3 might be the end and Sony, which distributed the show, didnât wait to see what happened next. They began pitching it to other networks, and FX, which had previously passed on the series, showed sudden interest.
Well! That changed everything. Once AMC realized other networks were ready to grab it, they renewed the show for season 4. Even so, momentum alone wasnât enough. What really pushed Breaking Bad to the next level was streaming.
Sony struck a deal with Netflix following the near-cancellation talk. The first three seasons were added to the platform before season 4 arrived and that move transformed the showâs future. People who had missed it on cable finally had a chance to catch up and many actually did. With the release of season 5, viewership had nearly doubled because Netflix turned the series from a highly praised one to a worldwide phenomenon.
But by summer 2011, the fate of Breaking Bad, whose fourth season lured 1.9 million viewers, was in question as Sony and AMC engaged in what became a public war. AMC reportedly was looking to wrap up the pricey series (sources put the budget in the $3 million range) in six to eight episodes, while Sony wanted 13. âIt was like when Mom and Dad are fighting, you kind of go like this,â says Gilligan, placing his hands over his ears, as he describes a situation that he labels âabove his pay grade.â Depending on who tells the story, AMC execs didnât want to shell out the money because they had just signed a painful $30 million deal with Mad Menâs Weiner, or because the networkâs recent push to own its series had put financial strain on the company. Plus, an exceedingly dark series like Breaking Bad wouldnât generate the type of ad revenue that made spending more pay off.
More on how hard it was to get the series made.
Eight years earlier, Breaking Bad was little more than a lesson in what not to pitch. A drama centered on a 50-year-old crystal meth dealer with cancer had studio and network executives running scared. Sony TVâs Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht recall being on the receiving end of Gilliganâs presentation dumbfounded.
âHe was talking about a character who had no joy in his life. He had no special skills and was living a very mundane existence. Oh, and then he gets cancer,â Van Amburg says, adding: âJamie and I were looking for the hidden cameras in the room and trying to figure out what was happening.â
But 20 minutes into Gilliganâs âMr. Chips turns into Scarfaceâ pitch, he hooked them. The former X-Files writer had shifted gears, talking more broadly about what happens when you have a life-changing moment and have to take stock as a person, a journey Breaking Badâs Walter would go on. The idea was born out of a phone call from fellow X-Files scribe Tom Schnauz, who had read an article about a guy cooking meth out of an RV.
âI said, âThat sounds like a good way to see America.â It literally started as a joke,â Gilligan says, recalling his post-X-Files career uncertainty (he spent seven seasons on the series). âThe idea of it suddenly struck me as wonderful for a TV show because who would do such a thing? And if he were indeed someone like us â meaning a couple of dopey middle-aged white guys â what would that look like?â
Recognizing that Gilliganâs concept was better suited for cable, Sony began setting up meetings. Showtime passed because it already had Weeds, about a pot-dealing suburban mom, in development. TNT and HBO passed as well; the former because a more mainstream network couldnât center a series on a meth dealer, the latter because the execs in place at the time didnât envision it as a series. (âThey wouldnât even grace us with a âno.â They were basically like, âJust get out of the office, please,â â says Gilligan.)
FX bit in 2005 and started to develop Breaking Bad around the same time as Courteney Coxâs L.A. tabloid drama Dirt. But the network, which already had three male anti-hero dramas on the air, was eager to lure females. So Dirt got the order, and Breaking Bad was passed over. âIt was as dead as a hammer,â says Gilligan, who turned to another rewrite of the Will Smith action feature Hancock. (FX chief John Landgraf has since said: âIf I had known that Vince Gilligan was going to be one of the best showrunners in television, and Breaking Bad was going to be literally one of the very best shows in television, I would have picked it up despite the concept.â)
Fun SK review.
Itâs like watching No Country for Old Men crossbred with the malevolent spirit of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
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Pluribus ep3 continues to GOAT it up.
Will the hive mind begrudgingly empower Carol to make a lab working day and night to reverse the effects? If theyâre willing on hand her an atom bomb, theyâd also be willing to hand her experts of science?
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FWIW, I stopped watching The Americans prior to the final season. I just felt the show was getting dumber, and it was difficult watching Keri Russellâs character becoming more cartoonish and less nuanced as the series progressed.
The Americans was always a dressed up pig, but the last season was really infuriating. Iâve never seen a TV show with as many filler episodes as The Americans. It was a plague in seasons 5 and 6.
Took me like 5 tries to get through the first episode of breaking bad. The Americans was smooth like butter to watch.
Are you saying you donât like meth? Is that what you are saying???
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For whatever reason I just couldnât lock in on bb. I kept trying though and eventually broke through. Long before most people even knew what it was. I had the same problem with Dexter. I couldnât get past the first episode until a handful of tries.
I like meth!
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Even the marketing was like uhhhhhh.
From one of the many writers of the X-Files comes a new series so fked up that youâll see a 50-year-old man in tighty whities.
Guess what? That manâs last name is literally White. Yes. Youâre welcome.
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Same. It took a second try for me to get past the third episode. The first season had a different tone, more of a dark comedy, before the show really found its stride.
In a way they got saved by the writersâ strike. It hurt them too, but it gave them more time to figure out what they were going to do.
Iâm probably in the minority but I liked Better Call Saul more than BB and I absolutely despised the Saul character on BB.
First season is very good (except for one redacted thing), it went downhill fast after that
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I like BCS more too 
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