At Delphi, Apollo, the Lord of Light and patron of the Muses, urged pilgrims to "know themselves" and to "follow the path of moderation in all things." Slow is often a good thing, a useful antidote to an overheated world. Slow food, slow exercise, slow travel. You know the drill. You take the time to savour things, to enjoy the experience, the journey is its own reward...all that good stuff. ...
In film sometimes the slow burn works. Barry Lyndon has often been called slow but I find it engrossing. Same thing with 2001: A Space Odyssey. It can work in TV too, especially in this age of quick cuts and jumped up phony storylines that get solved in 40 minutes. But then there's the wrong kind of slow where the director or the show runner thinks that he's such a fascinating fellow that he can do anything he likes and we'll watch engrossed...This is what happened to Sophia Coppolla in her film Somewhere and it's whats been happening to Breaking Bad. Seven Episodes in we've covered the territory that they might have covered in perhaps two and a half episodes in another year. Brian Cranston has said on the Breaking Bad podcast that this policy is deliberate and that they are trying to "teach the American viewer an entirely new vocabulary and method for watching television."
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Quite. Has social engineering been tried on American TV before? I can't imagine that this is a good idea. Breaking Bad's deliberate slowing down of the pacing has exposed a lot of the show's problems that I never noticed before. Here are some of them: 1) The plots can be shaky. Last Sunday's "we're selling drugs to get your attention" storyline was maybe the dumbest thing I've seen in four seasons. 2) Aaron Paul is a little too pretty and a tad too white collar for his role of Jessie. 3) Bryan Cranston is brilliant, as is the guy who plays Hank, but the rest of the cast (I'll name no names) are not the greatest actors working in the medium. 4) Mike's skills are increasingly supermanish and improbable. 5) All this has taken place in less than a year? It's getting like a Lee Child novel. How come everyone's not in the psych ward? (actually scratch that, that's probably going to be the slow boiling arc for next season) 6) The whole damn thing is just a little too played, no?
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For me Breaking Bad, once one of the best shows on TV, has gone the route of dare I say it, Lost, or worse Battlestar Galactica Season 4. No, I take that back, nothing could be as bad as BSG S4, but they want to watch themselves and in the words of Robyn, they want to, you know, pick it up!
17 comments:
There was a fight over American TV and how much it should be social engineering in the late forties and early fifties and the social engineers won (you could saythey cheated with the whole throwing writers in jail and blacklisting and all that unconstitutional stuff). For the next two decades TV was all about how corporate America wanted people to live - as docile consumers in the suburbs - and it worked. Cracks started to show in the 70's, but overall it's still social engineering. Kind of nice to hear someone say it.
I loved the premise of Breaking Bad, the terminally ill guy going out with a bang. At the very end of his life he reevaluates everything and feels he was cheated, he was social engineered, if you will.
But it seems the makers of the show really fell in love with their creation and also couldn't follow the terminally ill storyline to its natural conclusion. They got socially engineered, so to speak.
Now I see the ads and he's some badass with a gun taking on lifelong criminals and it looks Hollywood.
John
Yeah good point. Most of the 50's shows were basically about getting people to smoke cigarettes, right? I know that the Lucy Show used to begin with a cigarette ad. It was always weird when Letterman and Leno would do live commercials on their shows (I dont think they do it anymore) Letterman esp seemed so uncomfortable.
Breaking Bad still has its moments but I'm glad next year will be the last season - perhaps 5 six episode seasons would have been the way to go, like the way they do in the UK.
I agree with you completely, Adrian. Since you brought up the Greeks, I think the word that might apply here is hubris.
I'm not going to do any spoilers here, but Sunday's episode was actually fairly boring at times. It's like they've run out of new story. I guess when you have drug lords and gun battles, eventually it's going to get a bit repetitive. (But swimming pool imagery? Again?)Sunday's show did make me think that what the writer's should have learned is that the story line only really comes to life when Walt gets squeezed between a rock and a hard place, Hank is really the only one left to play the rock to the drug cartel's hard place.
I will say, though, in response to John's comment, that Walter White hasn't really become a Hollywood hardass. He's taken on the persona in self defense, and maybe delusions of grandeur, but he is never made out to be any kind of superhero. It's still different than most Hollywood shows, it's just that it's gotten a little flabby. If you just think about the opening story, you can see by just how much.
Seana
I couldn't believe the swimming pool visuals either. What were they thinking? Don't they watch their own show?
The badness of that whole scene makes me cringe - we're really asked to believe that those two smart young guys could have come up a cockamamie plan like that? Aaagghh!
And agreed Walter White is still interesting but the character isn't served by just throwing more and more stuff out there in the hope that some of it will work. They needed to have a lot more time in the writers room thinking about structure and the narrative arc. And someone brave might have said, "you know what Vince less is more, let's tell AMC we only have enough material for a 6 episode season," but of course that would never happen.
In any show with romantic tension, whether comedies like Cheers or light dramas like Moonlighting, the mistakes always come when the tension gets eased. You can't let Sam and Diane actually get together. Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd should never have consummated their relationship. TV isn't like life.
In the same way, you can't change the essential dynamics of a crime show. Skylar should be the person Walt is trying to keep out of it. Jesse has to be the on the same side as Walt and a kind of awkward second son. Hank has to be the the nemesis, which luckily he still is. Gus can be scary, but it's pointless to give him a back story. We don't care. Although it may sound callous, we can be horrified but not lose any of the stakes when side characters like Jesse's girl friend or even the little kid get killed. It's interesting how it all works.
I think it's weird that the writers don't understand the dynamics of their own show.
Seana
In retrospect that Fly episode from last season was probably a sign of things to come. I think the writers think they are writing Samuel Beckett or something.
Breaking Bad has been my favorite show for years. It does seem to have slowed of late. Previously one of its strengths was you didn't know what the pace was. Recall when Walter had the guy tied up in the basement, not knowing what to do? The scene went on for half an hour it seemed, but we didn't know what was to come. So I'd say slow is OK, but the overall tempo is better when surprise is an element.
Philip
Philip
That was a great scene because there was so much at stake. One guys life another guy's moral code.
Now its just a lot of driving around, long party scenes, long dialogue scenes sitting in chairs...
We all know they can do better.
"teach the American viewer an entirely new vocabulary and method for watching television."
I have noticed that when success goes to people heads, and arrogance really sets in, the end is nigh.
I wonder what the new method for watching television is. I've been using the old method, where you sit down and stare at it, so maybe that's the problem.
This has nothing to do with tody's blog. I just finished "Bloomsday Dead," and my word at the end was "beautiful." Ah, you write a good book. I'm off to buy "Falling Glass." Thank you.
Lew
Yup. Its a shame though because for a while there it was the best thing on TV.
Seana
You are clearly behind the times. I think there has to be chanting and joss sticks for a start.
Lil
I'm so glad!
I should point out though that Falling Glass takes place about six years after the events in Bloomsday and Michael Forsythe is only a minor character.
I have been clearly behind the times for a long time now, so this comes as no surprise to me.
We are holding the show to a pretty high standard here--we're comparing it only to itself, because there isn't anything else in its field really. I don't mean it's the best show ever, I mean that it is its own thing. An original creation.
Adrian
I agree that Breaking Bad has slipped in many of the ways you've suggested, although as I think you'll agree it's still one of, if not the best, shows on TV (still)? There's no way they could have kept up the breakneck pace of the first 3 seasons, an impressive feat in itself, if you ask me. I too find Mike's character (my fave, btw, that "half measure" speech from season 3 is still on my DVR) has been pulling off some practically superhuman/unbelievable stunts lately.
It's still the only show I give a rats ass about and look forward to watching every week.
Also, finished Fifty Grand a few months ago and never commented. GREAT BOOK like all of your stuff. I've never been a "reader" until I stumbled across DIWMB a few years ago, and now I am enjoying all kinds (fiction and non-fiction).
Duff
Best show on TV? Yup it probably still is, but I think it might have benefited from a shorter season.
Thanks for the praise about 50G - that one really seems to stir people up into the love/hate camp for some reason.
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