I got hooked on this show. At first I didn't understand what was going on as I picked up the show mid-season minus the opening credits. Then it dawned on me what the guy was doing, making meth, and it just blew me away from there. This show reminds me of the Sopranos and is as good as Mad Men, another addicting soap opera for adults.

It's funny but the scene where Walt tells his loved ones about his terminal cancer really struck me...how DO you tell the people you love you have the dreaded C and that you are going to die soon? The performances are off the scale good.

Best TV today.

As a former resident of Albuquerque, I must say this is the most hilarious phrase I've read in a long, long time. I'm afraid Albuquerque just doesn't have the gravitas to pull it off. It's like saying "Disneyland's unsavory drug underworld".

I think if I were 20 I could enjoy something Moonlighting-esque again. But I discover that I'm a little too old and jaded to enjoy beautiful people trading sexy quips. And that's a shame...

Breaking Bad is a tremendous show. I was lucky enough to watch it from the first episode. Normally I will read spoilers even about movies and shows I plan to see, but I stopped reading this column to experience it all "cold," like I did for the first season.

Cranston is tremendous, plain and simple. Even if you find yourself not liking him, you feel for him, and you root for him. The scene from the first season where he kills the dealer (who would have certainly killed him had he not) is probably one of the most devastating things I have witnessed on film or TV, both because the show went to great lengths to humanize the victim and because you are aware that part of Walt is being destroyed as well. Even in quality TV and film, life is too often destroyed casually, and I appreciate this show taking the opposite approach. Its not a perfect show but its as good as anything else out there. Basically, watch it.

FWIW, Cranston seems to have a knack for dark shows. Malcolm in the Middle was often incredibly depressing (and purposefully so, I believe).

What a messed up piece of sloppy writing. The author uses the actor's name when she is referring to the character: "Faced with insolvency, an unexpectedly pregnant wife and a teenage son with cerebral palsy, Cranston did what any man in his position might do: He teamed up with a no-account loser of a former student, Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), and started cooking up high-grade crystal meth out of the kid's Winnebago." Cranston doesn't do this, his character Walt White does. Does Havrilesky know the difference?

Apparently not.

Then she obliquely refers characters from other shows without referencing the shows they are in. I guess Ms. Havrilesky assumes everyone spends as much time watching the idiot box as she does, and thus knows exactly what characters she is talking about. Tony? I guess she means Tony Soprano. Why not include his last name? Don Draper? Maybe the main character in Mad Men, but I don't watch Mad Men, so how am I, or other such readers not strung out on cable soap operas, to know?

You lost before the end of the first page. You seemingly can't be bothered to proof read your own copy or present facts clearly; hence, I can't be bothered with wasting my time trying to wade through your drivel. Good day, madame.

This all begs the question: does Salon have copy editors or any editorial oversight what so ever?

It just wouldn't be a Heather Havrilesky column without at least one angry letter blasting her writing ability and swearing off all her future efforts. Now we just need someone to chime in that they don't even OWN a television set, and implore us all to read a book or get out and live our lives.

Mr. Smith, your posting made me laugh. Clearly you only hung out in the "safe" parts of town...or you have been away from Albuquerque for a long, long time. You do realize that like 90% of the episodes of the show "COPS" took place in Albuqueque? As a former resident myself, I can tell you that you are (sadly) very, very wrong. While living there I was told repeatedly that Albuquerque was a major drug stop on the way north from Mexico and the rest of the U.S., and when I lived there, I often saw evidence of this...and not only when I made the mistake of living in one of these neighborhoods for a time. There is a mini-mafia in NM, which we used to jokingly call the "Mexican Mafia" that was heavily involved in drugs and stolen cars.

Didn't get down south of 40 much, did you? :)

Not that I blame you. Albuquerque is very much divided between the haves and have nots and those "have" parts of town were much, much nicer (and FAR less depressing)...almost like 2 different cities. One was definitely a lot more disneylandish than the other, for sure.

In case you think I'm being melodramatic:

http://www.krqe.com/dpp/news/crime/crime_krqe_albuquerque_heroin_use_spike_border_violence_20080281940

http://kob.com/article/stories/S789189.shtml

http://www.krqe.com/dpp/news/crime/crime_krqe_albuquerque_controlled_substances_found_near_school_200902142041

http://www.krqe.com/dpp/news/crime/crime_krqe_moriarty_meth_lab_raided_near_moriarty_200902122141

http://albuquerque.fbi.gov/pressrel/2008/aq121708.htm

http://www.justice.gov/dea/pubs/state_factsheets/newmexico.html

along with Dollhouse, they are my 2 favorite new shows.

What happened to Terminator??? It started out as a good action show but is now just another boring soap opera type drama.

When I read Heather Havrilesky's article about Breaking bad, I was most taken by her tirade about idiotically optimistic Americans, vs the more realistic gloom and doom of various other cultures. I have always wondered why this is so, and it's probably partly because the US is a nation of immigrants (aside from ancestors who came here in chains, regretably and shamefully).

The difference may reflect a fundamental belief in the possibility of change and something better if you take a chance, compared with those who stayed put in the old country. You may think this attitude is delusional and so unsophisticated of cultureless, dopey Americans (after all, in the end we are all dead). But manifestly that "chance" paid off for countless immigrants and their descendants.

My grandfather came to this country alone at the age of 12, surviving for a year before he found his relatives (no children's services in those days). He also spent a year alone traveling from Eastern to Western Europe (as an 11-year-old) in order to get to the boat. I can't be sure, but I doubt he ever spent 1 minute in his 88 years despairing of the unfairness or hopelessness of life. I can tell similar stories of my other grandparents.

So yes, that fake Disneyland upbeat stuff grates on me too, but then I remember fondly a truly idiotic poem from my childhood that appeared on the box of a popular brand of donuts: "As you ramble on through life, brother, whatever be your goal, keep your eye upon the donut, and not upon the hole" (they didn't have donut holes in those days). If you prefer a darker take on the American dream, how about: "Guns aren't lawful, nooses give, gas smells awful, you might as well live" (Dorothy Parker, "Resume"--probably misquoted)