TV & DVD I didn't get into watching Breaking Bad right off, so ended up watching the whole thing on DVD. Now that I've caught up with the rest of the world, I can finally talk about it. This has to be the best show ever. Well, o.k., sure, there were other shows out there that at the time were the best show ever, like Buffy or Hill Street Blues, and nobody can deny how far The Simpsons has penetrated the zeitgeist. But Breaking Bad was so enthralling, even as you knew it shouldn't be. I don't know that I'll watch it through again, now that I know how it all comes out, but if an episode is running when I'm scrolling through the channels, I'm likely to linger. Update O.k., so, in response to the comment received, why is this so good? Well, there are no extraneous characters for one thing. Across the entire season, everybody ties in, serves a purpose, either in the plot overall - and from beginning to end - or in pushing the character development of the majors. Take the tweaker friends who hang around Jesse; by the end they still drive the plot and Walt's character forward, although in Walt's case, backward may be more appropriate, since they are now contributing to a kind of redemption. The structure of the episodes is also very tight; even the less cliff-hanging endings still are cliff-hanging enough to make you want to know what happens next, and season-ending episodes more so. The idea that this is a show that somehow celebrates a descent into evil misses the point. Yes, Walt does in fact go, like Michael Corleone, deeper and deeper in, and although some of the more heinous acts are committed by others they are often committed on his behalf, whether directed or not. But what's fascinating about this is the way he clings, at least initially, to the idea that his actions harm no one who would not otherwise have been harmed. The meth-heads would still have been meth-heads; he just gives them quality, and helps his family as a result. Drug dealers and higher-ups get killed, but that's the life they chose and they deserve it, don't they? Unlike Walt, he justifies to himself, that is. And Walt's development as a character is mirrored, in different ways, by his wife, his brother-in-law, and his partner-in-crime, each having an arc equally fascinating to watch, and sometimes devastating. There are the drug cartels, the lawyers who practice to the letter of the law but not its spirit, the easy marks, the easy money, the police taking shortcuts and the police doing the hard yards. And there's the society in which it takes place and the politics, at least implied, that have gotten us there. So, tightly drawn characters and plots over a short timeframe, with insights that can be applied in a variety of socio-political real-life issues. What's not to like?