Breaking Bad
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What is Breaking Bad?
Breaking Bad, an American crime drama on AMC from 2008 to 2013, was created by Vince Gilligan. Set in Albuquerque, New Mexico, it tells the story of Walter White, a chemistry teacher with lung cancer, who partners with his former student Jesse Pinkman to produce and sell methamphetamine to secure his family's finances.
As White becomes further involved in the drug trade, he takes on the alter ego Heisenberg. The show follows White as he navigates the dangers of his new occupation, which requires him to outsmart his brother-in-law Hank Schrader, a DEA agent, and local crime boss Gus Fring.
Breaking Bad garnered 58 Emmy nominations and won 16 awards, including Outstanding Drama Series in 2013 and 2014. The show's success led to two spin-offs: El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie and Better Call Saul.
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Who are the main characters in Breaking Bad?
Breaking Bad, set in Albuquerque, New Mexico, revolves around Walter White, a chemistry teacher diagnosed with lung cancer, who partners with former student Jesse Pinkman to produce meth.
Key characters include:
* Walter White (Bryan Cranston): A high school chemistry teacher who becomes a meth manufacturer to provide for his family after being diagnosed with cancer. He adopts the alter ego Heisenberg as he delves deeper into the drug trade.
* Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul): White's former student and reluctant partner in the meth business.
* Skyler White (Anna Gunn): Walter's pregnant wife, who becomes increasingly aware of and involved in her husband's criminal activities.
* Hank Schrader (Dean Norris): White’s brother-in-law and a DEA agent.
* Gustavo "Gus" Fring (Giancarlo Esposito): A local crime boss and drug kingpin.3 Britannica SourcesCreated from Britannica articles using AI. AI can make mistakes, so verify using Britannica articles. -
Where and when does Breaking Bad take place?
Breaking Bad is set in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The series follows Walter White, a high school chemistry teacher, who teams up with Jesse Pinkman to produce and distribute methamphetamine to secure his family's finances upon learning he has inoperable lung cancer.
The show premiered in 2008 and ran for five seasons, concluding in September 2013. Breaking Bad was the first cable television show to benefit from the "Netflix effect." By the time the final season debuted in 2012, its audience had more than doubled.
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What is the main plot of Breaking Bad?
Breaking Bad, set in Albuquerque, New Mexico, tells the story of Walter White, a high school chemistry teacher with inoperable lung cancer. To secure his family's finances, he partners with former student Jesse Pinkman to produce and sell methamphetamine.
As White becomes further entrenched in the illegal drug trade, he adopts the alter ego Heisenberg, which embodies his darker side. White must outsmart his brother-in-law Hank Schrader, a DEA agent, as well as local crime boss Gus Fring and Mexican drug cartel leader Hector Salamanca. The series also shows the strain White's illicit business places on his marriage and relationship with his son.
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How does Walter White's life change during the series?
Breaking Bad portrays Walter White's transformation from a mild-mannered chemistry teacher to a ruthless criminal. Facing a lung cancer diagnosis and financial insecurity, White starts producing methamphetamine with his former student, Jesse Pinkman.
As White delves deeper into the drug trade, he adopts the alias Heisenberg, representing his darker nature. This new persona leads him to navigate dangerous relationships with drug enforcement agents, crime bosses, and cartels. The series explores the impact of White's illicit activities on his family, particularly his marriage and his relationship with his son. Bryan Cranston received acclaim for his portrayal of White's shift from a vulnerable man to a cold-blooded criminal, earning him multiple Emmy Awards.
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Why is Breaking Bad considered an influential television show?
Breaking Bad is considered an influential television show because of its critical acclaim, compelling narrative, and impact on viewership trends. The show chronicles Walter White's transformation from a mild-mannered teacher to a dangerous criminal, which impressed critics. Breaking Bad was the first cable television show to benefit from the "Netflix effect," where viewers binge-watched previous seasons and then tuned in for new episodes, more than doubling its audience by the final season. The series received 58 Emmy nominations and won 16 awards, including Outstanding Drama Series twice.
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Breaking Bad, American crime drama television series created by writer and producer Vince Gilligan. It aired 2008–13 on the American Movie Classics (AMC) cable network. The title is a colloquial expression from the South, meaning “to raise hell.” The show was a popular and critical success and a breakout series for many of its cast members, in particular its lead actor Bryan Cranston.
Premise and characters
Set in Albuquerque, New Mexico, Breaking Bad is the story of a mild-mannered high school chemistry teacher named Walter White (played by Cranston) who discovers that he has inoperable lung cancer. Desperate to provide his pregnant wife, Skyler (Anna Gunn), and teenage son Walt Jr. (RJ Mitte) with financial security before his death, White partners with his ne’er-do-well former student Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) to make and sell methamphetamine. Their laboratory is a used recreational vehicle parked in the desert. Their product is exceptionally pure and atypically colored blue, unlike any form of “crystal meth” anyone has ever tried before or even seen. It becomes in high demand all over the Southwest and beyond. As White becomes more involved in the illegal drug trade, he adopts an alter ego named Heisenberg, who embodies his darker side.
White’s meth-making business requires him to outsmart his brother-in-law Hank Schrader (Dean Norris)—an agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration—as well as local crime boss Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito) and Mexican drug cartel leader Hector (“Tio”) Salamanca (Mark Margolis). The series also follows the strain placed on White’s marriage and his relationship with his son by his illicit business and changing personality. Jesse’s budding relationship with a young woman named Jane (Krysten Ritter) ushers in a chain reaction of tragic events in the show’s second season. Other characters include the shady lawyer Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk), the hit man and crime scene “cleaner” Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks), and the disturbingly polite sociopath Todd Alquist (Jesse Plemons).
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Series development and viewership
Prior to Breaking Bad, Gilligan served as a writer and producer on the science fiction series The X-Files (1993–2018). For his new show, Gilligan wanted to chronicle the gradual transformation of a harmless man into a dangerous criminal—in his words, “to turn Mr. Chips into Scarface.” (Mr. Chips is the name of a kindly schoolteacher in the 1934 novel Goodbye, Mr. Chips by James Hilton. Scarface can refer to either real-life Chicago gangster Al Capone or the fictional gangster Tony Montana, played by Al Pacino in Brian De Palma’s 1983 film Scarface.) Gilligan wrote the series pilot and successfully pitched it to Sony Pictures Television, which sold the show to AMC.
From its debut season, the show impressed critics. Cranston, known as a comedic actor in sitcoms such as Seinfeld (1989–98) and Malcolm in the Middle (2000–06), brought an unrelenting intensity to his new role. But the first season’s viewership suffered from poor timing. The Writers Guild of America began a strike in November 2007 during the show’s production, so that only seven of nine planned episodes could be made. Then, when the series premiered on January 20, 2008, the National Football Conference championship game airing that same night ran into overtime, cutting into the show’s time slot. Breaking Bad consequently failed to draw the audience that AMC had hoped, with the season finale netting a paltry 1.5 million viewers.
Gilligan later deemed the rough start a blessing in disguise. The hiatus caused by the strike allowed Gilligan and his writers to reconsider the pacing of Walter White’s character arc, which they came to realize was moving too quickly. The course correction helped steer the series through a second season and three more thereafter, all of which received universal acclaim from critics. Gilligan had also originally planned to kill off Jesse Pinkman in the first season, but the chemistry between Cranston and Paul gave him second thoughts, preventing him from eliminating a character who became the heart of the series for many fans.
Accolades and impact
The show received 58 Emmy nominations during its run, winning 16 awards. Among its wins were four Emmys for outstanding lead actor for Cranston, three for outstanding supporting actor for Paul, and two for outstanding supporting actress for Gunn. The show won twice (2013 and 2014) for outstanding drama series and received four awards for single-camera picture editing and one for writing. Banks, Esposito, and Margolis also received nominations for their performances as supporting characters.
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Breaking Bad was the first cable television show to benefit from the so-called “Netflix effect.” In 2011 AMC signed an agreement with Netflix to include Breaking Bad on the latter’s streaming service. Viewers began binge-watching the show’s previous seasons on Netflix and then tuning in for new episodes of the fourth season on AMC. By the time the final season debuted in 2012, its audience had more than doubled. The series finale aired on September 29, 2013, and was watched by more than 10 million people.
After the show ended, Gilligan produced two spin-offs: the movie sequel El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019), centering on Jesse Pinkman, and the prequel series Better Call Saul (2015–22), featuring fan favorite Saul Goodman.