Review: BREAKING BAD 1.1 - Pilot

I have been promising myself for a while now that I was going to watch this show, finally I got round to buying the Box set and I’m off, Want to help me find a new show?  READ THIS, and let me know what you think.

Ok back to Breaking Bad, I have read some pretty impressive things about this show on various different blogs, that’s what forced my hand to start watching it myself.  I have to say first off that I don’t think I’ve seen a more impressive opening to any pilot, a guy (Bryan Cranston) driving his mobile meth lab through the desert before crashing it, and then going about toting a gun in his underwear.  Impressive.

It get’s your attention straight away and manages to never loose it for the whole 50 minutes, that’s the mark of a pretty good show in my opinion.  I can’t think of any other apart from Lost maybe that has opened so impressively.

The story centers on Walter White (Bryan Cranston) a mild mannered chemistry teacher who also moonlights as a car wash attendant/cashier to make ends meet.  He finds out during this opening episode that he has lung cancer and only 2 years to live, wanting to leave his family financially secure he decides to put his chemistry skills to good use and recruits one of his former students and local druggie Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) to help him cook methamphetamine

It’s a crime drama series but don’t worry there is some dark humour along the way, or at least there was during this opening episode, I’ve posted a little clip of one scene where Walter has gone with his brother in law Hank (Dean Norris), a DEA agent, they go to the house of a suspected drug dealer, the previously mentioned Jesse.  Take a look you’ll laugh I promise. (I don't know why the video reverted to the bottom of the screen!)

I really didn’t know to much about Bryan Cranston before watching this, I haven’t ever see Malcolm in The Middle but from what I’m lead to believe in that show he’s kind of a big kid.  Not so much here, this is one mild mannered man who has suddenly woken up to a situation and no one is going to stop him from doing what he wants to do.

If you can't tell already then I am really impressed with this opening.  The show is of course just finished with it’s fourth season and they are doing a 16 episode fifth which may be put over two seasons, I just hope I can get through all the rest in time.  I will probably review all the episodes so make sure you start following the site on Twitter, Facebook or via RSS to keep me up to date with what you think.

To finish, this is not the only older show I will be reviewing, I'm a massive Dexter fan, remember?  I only started watching at the beginning of season 5 so I'm working my way through that box set, be sure to drop by and leave your comments.