Breaking Bad

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

That is the most retarded thing I have ever read on here.

 

Yeah, but I followed it up by saying 'Big Brother' and 'Or, well'. So, you know, shit evens out.

[Elite]

The most epic character development ever. Season 5 cant come quick enough, shame its the last.

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

The most epic character development ever. Season 5 cant come quick enough, shame its the last.

 

I don't agree. For the show to be rated at the top of all time shows, they need to leave people wanting more and more. I'm glad they've made the bold decision to cut it off whilst it's great.

[Dr.Filth]

Read about it on here last year, having never heard of it before, and ended up watching all 4 seasons in about a month.

 

Fuckin amazing series. Rafa Shankly is clearly on a wind up........or meths.

[Redder Lurtz]

boring over rated shit.

 

Spaz.

[celeryBADboy]

Loving this brilliant it is

[john23liverpool]

Yeah it's immense, seems like its been a fucking age though since the break in this series

[captainharris]

I'm halfway through S4. I've watched all three series in two weeks. Gutted that the end is already in sight. One of the best series I've seen. Love it.

[celeryBADboy]

I started yesterday now i'm on series 3.

[Kevin D]

Best show in the world today, in my view.

[Sugar Ape]

Best show in the world today, in my view.

 

It'll be sad when it ends, there isn't another show of that quality out there.

 

Maybe Boardwalk Empire if the new season is as good as the last.

[Kevin D]

It'll be sad when it ends, there isn't another show of that quality out there.

 

Maybe Boardwalk Empire if the new season is as good as the last.

 

I think Sons is right at it heels, you disagree? I have high hopes for Boardwalk and GOT.

[Sugar Ape]

I think Sons is right at it heels, you disagree? I have high hopes for Boardwalk and GOT.

 

I think Breaking Bad can be spoken of alongside The Wire, The Sopranos, Battlestar Gallactica, The Shield etc.. I'm not saying it's as good as all of them, but it's in the same ballpark.

 

Sons is probably the most enjoyable programme for me at the minute. I'd rather watch that than any other, but I don't think it's the best. Some of it is quite formulaic, for example:

Warning! The following content is NOT WORK SAFE. Click the Show button to reveal.

In season two when they go up to that cabin or wherever it was and have a fight, the sons and Henry Rollins crew, ten on ten and every single one of the sons batters their opposite.

A few small things like that stop it being as good as the others. I still love it, though.

 

I think Boardwalk Empire, can be an amazing show if they get the next season or two right. The rise of Capone and Luciano will be immense if done correctly. I'd say the last season of Boardwalk was on another level to the Sons, so a few more series of that calibre and it'l be right up there for me.

 

Game of thrones is an ace show. My problem with it is I've read all the books, so while I enjoy the show there isn't any suspense there for me as I know what's going to happen.

[loadsoftrophies]

I heard there's going to be a sixth series about Walt entering a witness protection programme, they're calling it Malcolm in the middle.......

[VladimirIlyich]

I think Breaking Bad can be spoken of alongside The Wire, The Sopranos, Battlestar Gallactica, The Shield etc.. I'm not saying it's as good as all of them, but it's in the same ballpark.

 

Sons is probably the most enjoyable programme for me at the minute. I'd rather watch that than any other, but I don't think it's the best. Some of it is quite formulaic, for example:

Warning! The following content is NOT WORK SAFE. Click the Show button to reveal.

In season two when they go up to that cabin or wherever it was and have a fight, the sons and Henry Rollins crew, ten on ten and every single one of the sons batters their opposite.

A few small things like that stop it being as good as the others. I still love it, though.

 

I think Boardwalk Empire, can be an amazing show if they get the next season or two right. The rise of Capone and Luciano will be immense if done correctly. I'd say the last season of Boardwalk was on another level to the Sons, so a few more series of that calibre and it'l be right up there for me.

 

Game of thrones is an ace show. My problem with it is I've read all the books, so while I enjoy the show there isn't any suspense there for me as I know what's going to happen.

 

Battlestar Gallactica? You'll be comparing Buck Rogers in the 25th Century to The Sopranos next.

 

Seriously?

[Sugar Ape]

Battlestar Gallactica? You'll be comparing Buck Rogers in the 25th Century to The Sopranos next.

 

Seriously?

 

You clearly haven't watched it, not surprising since you don't watch things that aren't ' realistic ' so how would you know what it's like?

[VladimirIlyich]

You clearly haven't watched it, not surprising since you don't watch things that aren't ' realistic ' so how would you know what it's like?

 

I simply couldnt put anything like that alongside the likes of The Wire,Sopranos,Breaking Bad,etc as I simply dont think they can be as well made or written.

 

I also find Sci-Fi doesnt transfer that well to the small screen.

The Star Trek variations,while good for their type just dont have the impact that the series above do.

 

I think the realism and grittiness make them stand out above others.

[Sugar Ape]

I simply couldnt put anything like that alongside the likes of The Wire,Sopranos,Breaking Bad,etc as I simply dont think they can be as well made or written.

 

I also find Sci-Fi doesnt transfer that well to the small screen.

The Star Trek variations,while good for their type just dont have the impact that the series above do.

 

I think the realism and grittiness make them stand out above others.

 

Vlad, it's so much more than a Sci-Fi show and it's widely acknowledged as one of the greatest programmes ever made. It's a bit pointless arguing how good it is with someone who hasn't seen it, but it deserves it's place up there and most people who have seen it would agree I'm sure.

 

There is a decent article on it below.

 

Battlestar Galactica: Better than The Wire? | Television & radio | The Guardian

 

You've finished The Wire box set? You'd like something else that is just as good as "the greatest show ever in the history of television" (© all Guardian journalists) but you're not quite sure where to go next? How about a series that's as passionate and intelligent as The West Wing when debating war and terrorism, or as emotionally articulate about death, loss and love as Six Feet Under, or as trippy, mystical and deliciously baffling as Twin Peaks? A series that's not afraid to take you on an epic, existential journey during which you'll grow to love characters who are wrangling with metaphysical issues such as the nature of humanity and god? A series that does all this while never losing sight of the idea that television should be entertaining? But what's that? You don't do spaceships? Oh ...

 

That's the problem when you start to recommend Battlestar Galactica. As we approach the last-ever episode (or get ready for the last box set, depending on how you're watching it), it's clear to fans that the last five years have been about much, much more than watching robots chasing people across space. And yet, there's no denying it - BSG is filled with scenes where brilliant actors such as Mary McDonnell or Edward James Olmos are called on to deliver lines about "firing up the FTL drives for a jump" with a straight face.

 

And yes, it is set in a universe where a lone military spaceship is protecting an ever-dwindling population of humans from the relentless onslaught of a race of sentient robots. And yes, even the show's name is ridiculous. It's not solid and enigmatic like The Wire, it doesn't have the elegant irony of The Sopranos, and there's a distinct lack of the now-wow zeitgesty zip you get from say, Sex and the City or Desperate Housewives. It's daft. It's pompous. It's - let's face it - sci-fi.

 

And yet, as anyone who has actually committed to it will tell you, BSG has evolved into one of the most sophisticated, compelling and original shows that's ever been made. Which isn't bad for the remake of what was in itself a trashy show - one designed chiefly to cash in on the success of Star Wars. If you were a kid in the late 70s/early 80s and found yourself plonked in front of the TV on a Saturday night, you might remember watching Lorne Greene hamming it up in the original Battlestar Galactica while his ace fighter pilots Dirk Benedict and Richard Hatch fended off evil "cylon" robots every week.

 

The new version of the show that emerged in 2004, courtesy of producers Ronald D Moore and David Eick, might have shared the bare bones of creator Glen Larson's original space-western - the plot and the character names, and also Richard Hatch (playing a terrorist-turned-politician in the reboot) - but that's about all.

 

The cylons in the new version still appear as hulking metallic "centurions" similar to the ones in the 80s (except now they're equipped with machine-gun hands), but the cyclons to take note of are the models who have somehow evolved to look exactly like humans. For reasons that may or may not be related to the show's budget, the cylons have only managed to clone 12 different human models, so the vast ranks of cyclons are all played by the same 12 actors. (That may sound confusing, but it's not a patch on how confusing BSG will seem to you if you casually dip in to an episode without starting the show right from the beginning.) As the new show begins, these human-lookalike models are the enemy within, living in secret among the humans - some undercover, but some, who have not yet been activated, with no idea that they are machines.

 

What really sets the show apart from the original, though, are its politics. With an opening that starts with an apocalypse - the near wiping out of the human race by the cylons - and ratchets the action up from there, it's hard not to read the series as being anything other than deeply rooted in the politics of Bush-era America. The idea to revive the show came shortly after 9/11, and its influence permeates the story. But where a contemporary show such as 24 has chosen to deal with the war on terror by setting up a string of impossibly last-minute disaster scenarios that can only be foiled if Jack Bauer flicks through his on-the-hoof torture manual, Battlestar has taken a much more elegant and complicated tack.

 

At first, we sympathise with the humans (read: America), under attack from a horde of impossible-to-detect alien invaders within (read: al-Qaida). Then you realise that it's the cylons, the baddies, who believe in a more Christian-sounding "one true God" - and the humans who worship a bunch of different gods. And that even though they've perpetrated mass genocide, it's nonetheless the cylons - created and then turned upon by humans - who believe themselves to hold the moral high ground.

 

In its third series Battlestar manages to pull off one of the most extraordinary leaps in American TV when the surviving group of humans find themselves living under cylon occupation on a new planet and our human heroes decide to use suicide bombing against the cylons. It's the sort of move you can only pull once you've taken viewers with you on a properly engaging journey. Suddenly you're looking at a collection of people that you've come to know and respect - rather than a string of dramatic archetypes - and being asked to watch them, even identify with them, as they debate the merits of terrorism. So it's Colonel Tigh, the brilliant, bitter, drunken military man, who decides to sacrifice innocent human bystanders for the sake of taking down a few "frakking toasters" (as they call cylons).

 

Even if you don't agree with their actions (and the show's not so glib that you're supposed to), you understand how they've come to them, and that's the key to BSG's genius. It doesn't ever talk down to its audience, or pander to gung-ho-American-war-on-terror rhetoric. Instead, it plays out issues in an adult fashion, allowing characters to debate what they're doing, to remember what they've done, to question why they're doing it - and crucially, to be called to account for their actions later. It's this sense of time passing and actions being remembered that gives the show a real depth. Characters grow, change their minds, fall in and out of love, quit jobs and get arrested, lose themselves in drink binges and then pull themselves together.

 

It's also a show that's technically very much of its time , with people devouring it on Sky1's HD broadcasts days after US transmission, nicking it off PirateBay to watch on laptops just hours later, downloading it legally from iTunes - or waiting for the box sets, where it makes the perfect "just one more" experience. But all that's also served to diminish the impact to some extent. Even with fellow fans who you know are watching on the same format as you, it feels only polite to start every conversation you want to have with, "Hang on - where are you up to?" just to make sure you don't blow any crucial new moments. Like so many of the best shows to come out of America recently (The Wire, Breaking Bad, 30 Rock), its reception has been one of a slow groundswell, rather than an instant mass hit. It's one of those quirky, modern life conundrums. You want to tell as many people as possible that they're missing out on something really special, but you don't want to tell them too much in case they do end up watching it; or even talk about it too loudly in public because you can't really keep prefacing every conversation you'd like to have over the water cooler with a verbal spoiler alert just in case you ruin anything for anyone within earshot who is keeping up. (This is also the reason why I'm avoiding details about the final series here, as a lot of fans are waiting for the final DVD. But it's good. Really good.)

 

If you're still not convinced you should give it a go, maybe we should leave it to the succinct words of the great amazon.co.uk poet who wrote: "If you liked that other great stuff, you'll like this."

[celeryBADboy]

Best Series ive seen so far it surpasses The Sopanos,

[FrenchEyeGlass]

Waiting patiently for the second half of season 5. Episode 8 left it on a nice cliff hanger.

 

Unfortunately I dont know how much longer the story can go, without becoming tiresome. So far it has literally been perfect so I hope we can get another 2 seasons out of it at least.

[clockspeed]

Waiting patiently for the second half of season 5. Episode 8 left it on a nice cliff hanger.

 

Unfortunately I dont know how much longer the story can go, without becoming tiresome. So far it has literally been perfect so I hope we can get another 2 seasons out of it at least.

 

The next half season 5 is it . Refer to opening scene season 5 episode 1 that's what we are working towards . So no more two seasons.

[FrenchEyeGlass]

The next half season 5 is it . Refer to opening scene season 5 episode 1 that's what we are working towards . So no more two seasons.

 

Oh dear. Didn't realise so thanks for letting us know. I'll have to really savour these next 8 episodes it seems.

[VladimirIlyich]

Vlad, it's so much more than a Sci-Fi show and it's widely acknowledged as one of the greatest programmes ever made. It's a bit pointless arguing how good it is with someone who hasn't seen it, but it deserves it's place up there and most people who have seen it would agree I'm sure.

 

There is a decent article on it below.

 

Battlestar Galactica: Better than The Wire? | Television & radio | The Guardian

 

I respect your opinion but Ive seen a few episodes of Battlestar Galactica and dont regard it as anything more than a kids show to be honest. I even think Star Trek The Next Generation is much better and I say this as somebody who isnt a massive Sci Fi fan despite seeing and enjoying a whole host of Sci Fi films.

 

I believe that we've seen a range of programmes such as The Wire,The Sopranos and Breaking Bad that have taken television to a level thats never been seen before and is so far beyond anything thats ever been made,including a lot of cinema too.

 

I'm not being intentionally dismissive,its just that I feel these series leave others trailing in their wake.(Maybe a bit of a Space reference there.)

[Elite]

It'll finish on an high and cement it's place in TV folklore.

[Elite]

I respect your opinion but Ive seen a few episodes of Battlestar Galactica and dont regard it as anything more than a kids show to be honest. I even think Star Trek The Next Generation is much better and I say this as somebody who isnt a massive Sci Fi fan despite seeing and enjoying a whole host of Sci Fi films.

 

I believe that we've seen a range of programmes such as The Wire,The Sopranos and Breaking Bad that have taken television to a level thats never been seen before and is so far beyond anything thats ever been made,including a lot of cinema too.

 

I'm not being intentionally dismissive,its just that I feel these series leave others trailing in their wake.(Maybe a bit of a Space reference there.)

 

Agree with that, could never get into BSG despite numerous attempts.