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Breaking Bad is an American crime drama television series created and produced by Vince Gilligan for AMC. Set and filmed in Albuquerque, New Mexico, the series follows Walter White (Bryan Cranston), an underpaid, dispirited high-school chemistry teacher struggling with a recent diagnosis of stage-three lung cancer. White turns to a life of crime and partners with a former student, Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), to produce and distribute methamphetamine to secure his family's financial future before he dies, while navigating the dangers of the criminal underworld. Breaking Bad premiered on AMC on January 20, 2008, and concluded on September 29, 2013, after five seasons consisting of 62 episodes.
Among the show's co-stars are Anna Gunn and RJ Mitte as Walter's wife Skyler and son Walter Jr., and Betsy Brandt and Dean Norris as Skyler's sister Marie Schrader and her husband Hank, a DEA agent. Others include Bob Odenkirk as Walter's and Jesse's lawyer Saul Goodman, Jonathan Banks as private investigator and fixer Mike Ehrmantraut, and Giancarlo Esposito as drug kingpin Gus Fring. The final season introduces Jesse Plemons as the criminally ambitious Todd Alquist, and Laura Fraser as Lydia Rodarte-Quayle, a cunning business executive.
Breaking Bad's first season received generally positive reviews, while the subsequent seasons received unanimous critical acclaim, with praise for the performances, direction, cinematography, writing, story, and character development. Since its conclusion, the show has been lauded by critics as one of the greatest television series of all time. It has also developed a cult following.[7] The show had fair viewership in its first three seasons, but the fourth and fifth seasons saw a moderate rise in viewership when it was made available on Netflix just before the fourth season premiere. Viewership increased exponentially upon the premiere of the second half of the fifth season in 2013. By the time that the series finale aired, it was among the most-watched cable shows on American television. The show received numerous awards, including 16 Primetime Emmy Awards, eight Satellite Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, two Peabody Awards, two Critics' Choice Awards, four Television Critics Association Awards and one British Academy Television Award. Cranston won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series four times, while Aaron Paul won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series three times; Anna Gunn won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series twice. In 2013, Breaking Bad entered the Guinness World Records as the most critically acclaimed TV show of all time. In 2023, Breaking Bad was ranked as the best TV series in the last 25 years by critics in a poll conveyed by Rotten Tomatoes.[8]
The show takes place in Albuquerque, New Mexico, between 2008 and 2010.[9] Breaking Bad follows Walter White, a struggling, frustrated high school chemistry teacher who becomes a crimelord in the local methamphetamine drug trade, driven to provide for his family financially after being diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. Initially making only small batches of meth with his former student Jesse Pinkman in a rolling meth lab, Walter and Jesse eventually expand to make larger batches of an extremely pure, blue meth which creates high demand. Walter takes on the name "Heisenberg" to mask his identity. Because of his new business, Walter finds himself at odds with his family, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) through his brother-in-law Hank Schrader, the local gangs and the Mexican drug cartels (including their regional distributors), putting him and his family's lives at risk.
... should really focus on doing something else. But I think any good drama worth its weight always has a sprinkling of comedy in it, because you can ease the tension to an audience when it's necessary, and then build it back up again. Walt White has no clue he's occasionally funny, but as an actor, I recognize when there are comedic moments and opportunities.[10]
I thought about Robert Evans because I've listened to The Kid Stays in the Picture on CD. He's constantly switching up his cadence and his delivery. He emphasizes interesting words. He has loads of attitude in almost every line that he says. So when I rehearse the scenes alone I do my impersonation of Robert Evans to find those moments and turns. Then I go out and I do Saul.[18]
Breaking Bad was created by Vince Gilligan, who had spent several years writing the Fox series The X-Files. Gilligan wanted to create a series in which the protagonist became the antagonist. "Television is historically good at keeping its characters in a self-imposed stasis so that shows can go on for years or even decades", he said. "When I realized this, the logical next step was to think, how can I do a show in which the fundamental drive is toward change?"[20] He added that his goal with Walter White was to turn him from Mr. Chips into Scarface.[21][22][23] Gilligan believed the concept of showing the full drastic transformation of a character across the run of a television show was a risky concept and would be difficult to pitch without other powerful factors to support it, such as strong cinematography and acting.[24]
The show's title is a Southern colloquialism meaning, among other things, "raising hell", and was chosen by Gilligan to describe Walter's transformation.[25] According to Time entertainment editor Lily Rothman, the term has a broader meaning and is an old phrase which "connotes more violence than 'raising hell' does ... [T]he words possess a wide variety of nuances: to 'break bad' can mean to 'go wild', to 'defy authority', and break the law, to be verbally 'combative, belligerent, or threatening' or, followed by the preposition 'on', 'to dominate or humiliate'."[26]
The concept emerged as Gilligan talked with his fellow X-Files writer Thomas Schnauz regarding their current unemployment and joked that the solution was for them to put a "meth lab in the back of an RV and [drive] around the country cooking meth and making money".[27]
After writing the concept for the show and pilot, Gilligan pitched it to Sony Pictures Television, who became very interested in supporting it. Sony arranged for meetings with the various cable networks. Showtime passed on this, as they had already started broadcasting Weeds, a show with similarities to the premise of Breaking Bad.[28] While his producers convinced him that the show was different enough to still be successful, Gilligan later stated that he would not have gone forward with the idea had he known about Weeds earlier.[29] Other networks like HBO and TNT also passed on the idea, but eventually FX took interest and began initial discussions on producing the pilot.[28] At the same time, FX had also started development of Dirt, a female-centric crime-based drama series, and with three existing male-centric shows already on the network, FX passed up Breaking Bad for Dirt.[28]
One of Gilligan's agents spoke to Jeremy Elice, the director of original programming for AMC who was looking for more original shows to add alongside their upcoming Mad Men. Elice was intrigued, and soon a meeting was set up between Gilligan, Elice, and two programming executives. Gilligan was not optimistic about this meeting, fearing they would just put him off, but instead all three showed great interest, and the meeting ended up establishing how AMC would acquire the rights from FX and set the pilot into production. It took about a year following this meeting before Sony had set up the rights with AMC and production could start.[28]
The initial versions of the script were set in Riverside, California, but at the suggestion of Sony, Albuquerque was chosen for the production's location due to the favorable financial conditions offered by the state of New Mexico. Once Gilligan recognized that this would mean "we'd always have to be avoiding the Sandia Mountains" in shots directed toward the east, the story setting was changed to the actual production location.[32][33] It was shot primarily on 35 mm film,[34] with digital cameras employed as needed for additional angles, point of view shots and time-lapse photography.[35] Breaking Bad cost $3 million per episode to produce, higher than the average cost for a basic cable program.[36]
Around 2010, AMC had expressed to Sony Pictures Television and Gilligan that they felt that the third season would be the last for Breaking Bad. Sony started to shop the show around, having gained quick interest from the FX network for two more seasons, upon which AMC changed its mind and allowed the show to continue.[37] At the same time, Netflix was starting to aggressively shop for content to add to its service and arranged a deal with Sony for Breaking Bad to be available after the airing of the fourth season. Knowing that AMC had placed Breaking Bad on a potential cancellation route, Sony pushed to have the show added to the service in time for the fourth season. Breaking Bad's viewership grew greatly as viewers binged the series on Netflix, helping to assure that a fifth season could be made. The fifth-season premiere had more than double the viewership compared to the fourth season premiere, attributed to the Netflix availability.[37] Gilligan thanked Netflix at the Emmy Awards in September 2013 after the series' conclusion for the popularity of the series, saying that Netflix "kept us on the air".[38]
As the series progressed, Gilligan and the writing staff of Breaking Bad made Walter increasingly unsympathetic.[21] Gilligan said during the run of the series, "He's going from being a protagonist to an antagonist. We want to make people question who they're pulling for, and why."[22] Cranston said by the fourth season, "I think Walt's figured out it's better to be a pursuer than the pursued. He's well on his way to badass."[23]
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