Breaking Bad
Season 5.9 “Bad Breaks”
Guest Writer: Corey K. Creekmur
Monday, August 12, 2013
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tragedy
by Unit for Criticism
"Bad Breaks"
Written by: Corey K. Creekmur (University of Iowa)
The final half of the final season of Breaking Bad has arrived with absurdly high expectations, generating what Alessandra Stanley called a “finale frenzy” in the New York Times yesterday, in one of dozens of pieces written in anticipation of the impending conclusion of the celebrated AMC series that began in 2008. Centered on the rapid expansion of former high school chemistry teacher Walter White’s (Bryan Cranston) methamphetamine empire, critics quickly summarized the show’s evident appeal as “addictive,” and so are now preoccupied with calculating the impact of our collectively going cold turkey once the supply of new product is cut off. However, as many other critics -- as well as ordinary viewers and even creators of “quality television” series – now clearly recognize, consumption of relatively harmless recreational drugs like Breaking Bad no longer requires waiting patiently for the serialized disbursement of weekly broadcast doses. Even if the first airing of an episode continues to draw the most fevered fans, determined to avoid the dreaded “spoilers” felt to dilute their rush, the widespread ability to record, download, stream, demand, or otherwise watch television on consumers’ own schedules has thoroughly altered our relationship to TV reception, perhaps especially of densely plotted serial narratives. The now common activity of binge viewing, as well as selective and controlled re-viewing (no longer determined by network re-run schedules or syndication), in addition to everyone’s more surgical ability to pause, rewind, and fast-forward, explodes the limited time frame of reception as well as the activity of collective cultural response. We are now, as another recent New York Times article puts it, in the age of “post-water-cooler-TV.” I could ruin the endings of Fringe or Battlestar Galactica for you since I’ve plowed through each in its entirety, but since I haven’t yet gotten to The Sopranos or Lost, please don’t tell me what happens: we are a now a long way from all talking about who shot J.R. together on the same morning in America.
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