Breaking Bad

I lost the lion's share of Saturday to Breaking Bad. I'd been meaning to get around to watching it, but somehow I'd just never gotten around to it. Maybe the fact that the main character is played by Bryan Cranston, a guy I previously knew only as "The Dad from that Annyoing Show on Fox" plays the main character. Well, the show is better than it has any right to be. I went through the first season and part of the second yesterday while cleaning up and doing laundry. Of course, if I'd known it was going to rain today, I'd have spent more time outside yesterday when the sun was out, but I can't really say I regret parking myself in front of the TV. It's something I rarely do, and it's even more rare to feel like it was time well spent, but in this case, I have to say, the show delivered.

Breaking Bad swings wildly between being a hard boiled crime show and a family drama. Every time Walt goes out and gets involved in the drug business he has to take time out to deal with the consequences of his actions. His cancer serves as an effective metaphor for the way his destructive choices affect his family, as well as the nature of the business he's involved in. Cranston's performance as a desperate man looking at the end of his rope, and likely his life, is quite sympathetic. It's hard not to feel for a guy who draws up a pro and con list with "Judeo Christian principles" on one side and "He'll kill your entire family" on the other while contemplating whether or not kill a drug dealer. Even as Walter's decisions become more and more unjustifiable, and his actions start to threaten his family-the people he's ostensibly trying to help with his methamphetamine sideline-you still find yourself rooting for him. This show is way better than AMC's other original series, Mad Men. Why anyone gets all worked up over that one is beyond me. Of course, the fact that Breaking Bad is so good can only mean one thing: No one's watching it.