I have a confession to make. Amidst my dislike for green beans and custard (a tragedy given my St Louis home base), I also didn’t love one of the proclaimed peak TV greats: Breaking Bad. In fact, my husband and I got through more than a season of slogging through the well-acted, well-scripted, and highly lauded drama series before I gave up and called it quits. I don’t regret it for a second.
I didn’t quit Breaking Bad because I thought it was rubbish. I didn’t quit because life got too busy; life is always busy and I’ve still had time to binge-watch a decade’s worth of Masterchef. I didn’t quit because I have a grudge against Bryan Cranston or Vince Gilligan or because I liked Dean Norris better in Under the Dome. (Sidebar: I did not like Dean Norris better in Under the Dome, though the first season is solid.)
I didn’t quit because at the time of Breaking Bad’s airing, particularly near the end, the Albuquerque-set series was all my co-workers could talk about. Though it is worth pointing out that Breaking Bad was a huge talking point for CinemaBlend back in 2013 when I was a freelancer at this esteemed website.
I quit because I found it dark, graphic and depressing. Much like Michelle McNamara’s I’ll Be Gone In The Dark, it was keeping me up all night on the nights I managed to get through an episode or two. I could watch an episode at 4 p.m. and still be stressed about it at 1 a.m. It had nothing to do with the memorable characters or the solid writing; I simply could not abide living adjacent to this world created by Vince Gilligan.
I can’t be the only person in the history of the universe who simply found Breaking Bad to be too stressful to manage, but I have yet to find another person willing to admit this. All of the reasons above are reasons Breaking Bad is often listed as one of the best TV shows and (among the best TV shows that got even more popular streaming). In fact, there are so many people who like the Bryan Cranston-led drama there are literal resources to help viewers find shows like Breaking Bad.
My co-workers have since told me that Better Call Saul might be a better fit tonally for me, and they are probably right. Bob Odenkirk’s a funny guy in real life and Saul has been branded by us as a TV series that’s “easy to dive into.” I even recently found out Saul was originally supposed to work at a Hot Topic, a prospect I find very amusing. But I had so much trouble sleeping with Breaking Bad, I haven’t been willing to give Saul Goodman’s tale the proper reverence, either. Maybe my Gilligan-less streak will change when his new show with Rhea Seehorn drops?
Listen, as someone who works on the Internet, I am inherently aware I missed out on a lot of cultural milestones and a piece of peak TV history by ducking out when I did. I know because TV moments like Heisenberg throwing a pizza onto the roof were everywhere. But for me, there’s just stuff I wanted to do that didn’t include well-written stories about a teacher-turned-crime lord and the chances he was willing to take when he felt like he had nothing to lose.
I know I write about TV for a living, but the occasional gap is necessary given how much content is being created these days, and we have a lot of wonderful employees who could wax poetic about which episodes are the best (and worse) and which Gilligan series sticks with them more. It's just not me.
And in case you are wondering… No, I haven’t been able to finish Sons of Anarchy either.
