Breaking Bad
Looks like viewers will get to see more of Walter White's transition from meek chemistry teacher to meth kingpin: Breaking Bad has been renewed for a third season.<
read more
- email this
- add to Yahoo! buzz
- add to facebook
Bryan Cranston, Breaking Bad
Breaking Bad kicks off its second season Sunday (9 pm, AMC) with Bryan Cranston returning to his Emmy-award winning role as Walter White — and taking the character to even darker places.
read more
- email this
- add to Yahoo! buzz
- add to facebook
Who says a show about a terminally ill chemistry teacher who decides to take up cooking and selling meth to make money for his family can't also be a laugh riot?
If you missed Breaking Bad on AMC last season, have no fear: We've got the pilot episode right here to whet your appetite before Season 2 begins on March 8 (10 pm/ET). The series stars Emmy winner Bryan Cranston as Walter White, who is desperate to find a way to make enough money to provide for his handicapped teenage son (RJ Mitte) and pregnant wife (Anna Gunn) before he succumbs to lung cancer. Watch the pilot after the jump, and let us know what you think.
read more
- email this
- add to Yahoo! buzz
- add to facebook
Bryan Cranston, Breaking Bad
Question: I imagine Bryan Cranston's win for Breaking Bad was a shocker for most people watching the Emmys. I know I did a double take. I thought my husband and I were two of the five or six people in the country who watched it. In fact, I've never met anyone who's even heard of the show, and when I tell them the plot, they cringe. This is a hard sell even by fans like myself. I can't seem to convince anyone that the story and acting around the plot, while being the darkest of dark comedies imaginable, is still hysterically funny. I'm not yet a fan of the other actors except for his teenaged sidekick, but he is fabulous. Like most critics, I'm not sure how long the show can continue to grow given its bleak storyline, but most shows really are not meant to go on forever. I'm curious to know what you think about the win. Is it just that Cranston is popular in Hollywood? Would that be enough to propel him to a win for a show nobody ever heard of or watched? Or is AMC being rewarded for ...
read more
- email this
- add to Yahoo! buzz
- add to facebook
Question: I'm just so happy that Bryan Cranston won the Emmy for best actor in a drama series. The category was loaded with deserving actors (Jon Hamm and Michael C. Hall are other personal favorites of mine), but it was such a nice surprise to see Cranston win. Breaking Bad seems fairly under the radar, so I was glad to see it get such recognition, and makes me very excited for the next season. Similarly, it was great to see Zeljko Ivanek win among actors with a decidedly higher profile. He created such a great character that it's unfortunate he likely won't be such a large part of the show next season. I must admit I'm pretty happy with the overall winners, though I would love to see Neil Patrick Harris or Mary-Louise Parker earn an Emmy one of these years. How about you? Any picks you found particularly irksome?
Answer: My extended reaction to the awards, and the show itself, were dealt with in a morning-after Dispatch, but I agree that giving Jeremy Piven a third Emmy when Neil
...
read more
- email this
- add to Yahoo! buzz
- add to facebook
Bryan Cranston by Mathew Imaging/WireImage.com
The 60th annual Emmy Awards set out to honor TV history and ended up making a little of its own. As expected, AMC's stylishly adult 60s-era drama Mad Men took home the best drama prize, the first ever for a basic cable series. The upstart channel delivered a much more shocking triumph in Bryan Cranston's surprise (but well-earned) win for Breaking Bad. "She's bald, too," marveled the actor, who shaved his head to play Walter White, a cancer-ravaged teacher-turned-meth dealer. Best known for outrageous comedy roles like the dad in Malcolm in the Middle, Cranston is a well-liked star who was considered an underdog in a strong field that included fellow AMC leading man Jon Hamm of Mad Men, House's Hugh Laurie (amazingly, still empty-handed), Dexter's brilliant Michael C. Hall, In Treatment's brooding Gabriel Byrne and Boston Legal's showboating James Spader.
read more
- email this
- add to Yahoo! buzz
- add to facebook
Dominic West by Nicole Rivelli/HBO
Its final season may have been built around a number of Big Lies, but here's the honest truth: HBO's The Wire is TV for the ages. Though it spent much of its acclaimed existence under the pop-culture radar, despite annual appearances on critics' best-of-year lists, this heartbreaking and searing masterpiece of urban decay and corruption will live on as all great literature does. Any self-respecting DVD library would want to include the five seasons of The Wire. It's that good, and that rich.Sunday’s expanded finale wraps up much of the complex story, but as usual, not in a tidy fashion. Ambiguities, moral compromises, deals struck with a variety of devils, all par for the course in David Simon’s bleak version of Baltimore. No cheap sentiment here, although there is a memorable scene involving a surprise wake at the Irish cop bar.The ironies are deep and dark as McNulty (Dominic West) sweats out the consequences of his scheme being exposed, of having created a fictional ser...
read more
- email this
- add to Yahoo! buzz
- add to facebook
Question: The cast and crew of Breaking Bad have done a great job — at making me depressed! I couldn't get more than halfway through the pilot, and I wanted to cry through the 30 minutes I did see! I think that for a TV show to affect me this strongly means that the writers and actors are nothing short of amazing and deserve some kudos. I never saw Bryan Cranston in Malcolm in the Middle, so I am not familiar with his comedic work, but watching him in this show made me wonder if he's capable of even smiling. So many moments in the pilot were literally heartbreaking: Being ignored by his students while trying to teach, being ignored at his own birthday party, and the one that got me the most, when his wife asked him if he used the credit card at Staples — his simple, "We needed printer paper" response just killed me. I couldn't watch any further, so please tell me that it gets better, as in lighter. Beneath all the doom and gloom, there was something about the show that I really wanted ...
read more
- email this
- add to Yahoo! buzz
- add to facebook
Bryan Cranston courtesy AMC
Cheers to Bryan Cranston for his image-shattering performance in Breaking Bad. I always knew he was a committed actor: The Malcolm in the Middle episode when dad Hal learns how to roller-boogie remains one of the greatest tour de forces in sitcom history. But who knew Cranston could handle dark material like AMC's dramedy about a dying chemistry teacher who resorts to selling crystal meth (and worse crimes) to save his family? Cranston's not Bad — he's brilliant.• Read and react to Bruce's opinions on Cashmere Mafia's Bonnie Somerville, American Idol's new season and more!• Share your own raves and rants about other shows on the Reader Cheers & Jeers discussion board.• We may feature your Cheer or Jeer on TVGuide.com or in TV Guide magazine!
read more
- email this
- add to Yahoo! buzz
- add to facebook
Bryan Cranston in Breaking Bad by Doug Hyun/AMC
The when: Sundays at 10pm/ET (with many encores), premiering Jan. 20. Why watch?: Judging by the pilot, this promises to be a smart, stylish, grimly funny, ultimately serious look at how life can treat one poorly and how bad choices can make things that much worse... but not always worse, and not in every way. Walter White is a high-school chemistry teacher in Alburquerque, New Mexico, who is just turning 50 as the series begins. His job pays so poorly that he has to moonlight at a car wash; he had done early work that helped other chemists earn a Nobel Prize while he's clearly been slaving away at his school for too many years; his teenaged son has cerebral palsy (though generally seems to be coping with that); his wife is pregnant; and he discovers that the persistent chest cold he's been fighting is actually malignant, incurable lung cancer. (You're laughing already, yes?) Having decided that playing life straight isn't going to do him any good nor leave any kind of financial (at...
read more
- email this
- add to Yahoo! buzz
- add to facebook
