I don’t think so but it’s very close. BB hit the ground running from its very first episode and never lifted its foot off the gas. BCS took a season to establish itself and to figure out what to do with Kim. Once that happened, its become a juggernaut. This final season has been its best. They’re both worth the time investment.
I think so, but they are very different pace. BCS is a deeper (slower) story with better character development, but less action. Depends on why you liked Breaking Bad.
I think it's equally good, but I can appreciate that it must be far more challenging to write.
From a writing perspective, Breaking Bad was amazing because they somehow created a very good story arc for the entire series, despite having no idea (at least initially) how many seasons it might last. Better Call Saul has to maintain continuity with a story that's already been written. It's like trying painting yourself into a corner and then exiting the room without leaving a footprint.
I think so - Breaking bad becomes a Jack Ryan type thriller - "this semi-ordinary dude can do crazy things almost like a semi-superhero". Better Call Saul is a character study, Breaking Bad is an anti-hero action show.
Yeah this is a clickbait title for sure. Halt & Catch Fire season 1 was setting it up to be an amazing show. And then the Netflix-ization of the show happened. We have to make the super hacker a hot chick and the leading male has to be secretly gay and oh yeah the real brains behind it all is the lead devs wife...and so the show was ruined.
Dunno, the first season had a weird mashup of Mad Men and Breaking Bad, a little, with Joe being a slick talker Don Draper and Gordon being frustrated scientific genius Walter White (which was exacerbated when they also gave him a disease). Also Joe wasn't gay, he was bisexual.
The seasons with Mutiny were a real treat, great hacker startup energy and a really fun exploration into the new tech frontiers that were opening up at the time. The overall story did end up weird, but it's one of those shows where you're free to just view the characters as vehicles into a compelling world.
It is true that many shows only "find their feet" and "come into their own" after starting, typically in the second season.
This is IMHO true of H&CF.
It is also true that part of this was the pivot to foreground the female characters (1)
The idea that the show was "ruined" by not portraying them as just "hot chick" and "wife" is a) extremely gross and b) a statement that's really only about the person making it.
The people at the forefront making it happen weren't really like Joe or Gordon, gender and jobs aside. From the first episode both of them had a lot of dramatized character traits.
Right, it's a TV drama, and should be judged on those terms. And IMHO, succeeds on them, even when it was was a non-obvious turn. The characters are superb.
Why do you say "gender aside" though? I suspect if the real players were women, turning them into men for TV might be looked at negatively. How is this different?
I suspect the differences between Joe, Gordon, and co., and the actual people behind the PC revolution as captured by Silicon Cowboys, go far beyond differences in demographics or check-box traits, to their fundamental personalities themselves. Focusing on such superficial traits is a red herring.
Agreed. I don't know what is responsible for this, but it's increasingly difficult to find shows that try to develop characters that are interesting and encourage us to care about them instead of just pulling something new every week from a grab-bag of dramatic twists.
As a counterpoint, I really enjoyed Dog Day Afternoon, which is basically a masterclass in taking a single situation and a fantastic actor and just letting it play out.
That show has my favorite quote from all of tv. It best describes how I felt discovering mosaic and the web…
“When I was five, my mother took me to the city. And we went through the Holland Tunnel, and it was basic. Concrete and steel. But it was also my excitement sitting in the backseat, wondering when it was going to be our turn to emerge. It was the explosion of sunlight. And when we exited the tunnel, all of Manhattan was laid out before us. And that was the best part of the trip the amazing possibility to be able to go anywhere within something that is magnificent and never-ending. This is the first Web browser,” -Joe MacMillan (played by Lee Pace)
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 73.8 ms ] threadFrom a writing perspective, Breaking Bad was amazing because they somehow created a very good story arc for the entire series, despite having no idea (at least initially) how many seasons it might last. Better Call Saul has to maintain continuity with a story that's already been written. It's like trying painting yourself into a corner and then exiting the room without leaving a footprint.
It's the last "show" I bought since "The Office"... I wish it had a few more seasons, but everything good must come to an end!
The seasons with Mutiny were a real treat, great hacker startup energy and a really fun exploration into the new tech frontiers that were opening up at the time. The overall story did end up weird, but it's one of those shows where you're free to just view the characters as vehicles into a compelling world.
This is IMHO true of H&CF.
It is also true that part of this was the pivot to foreground the female characters (1)
The idea that the show was "ruined" by not portraying them as just "hot chick" and "wife" is a) extremely gross and b) a statement that's really only about the person making it.
1) https://slate.com/culture/2015/05/amcs-halt-and-catch-fire-s...
As a counterpoint, I really enjoyed Dog Day Afternoon, which is basically a masterclass in taking a single situation and a fantastic actor and just letting it play out.
“When I was five, my mother took me to the city. And we went through the Holland Tunnel, and it was basic. Concrete and steel. But it was also my excitement sitting in the backseat, wondering when it was going to be our turn to emerge. It was the explosion of sunlight. And when we exited the tunnel, all of Manhattan was laid out before us. And that was the best part of the trip the amazing possibility to be able to go anywhere within something that is magnificent and never-ending. This is the first Web browser,” -Joe MacMillan (played by Lee Pace)