Breaking Bad, did it ever almost "jump the shark"?

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by kevintomb, Jun 4, 2014.

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  1. Cheepnik

    Cheepnik Overfed long-haired leaping gnome

    I don't think it's out of line to say it almost jumped the shark, per the OP. The whole show, from the premise on down, was never predicated on plausibility. But that last episode, especially, was pretty wacky, almost to the point where I buy the "It was all Walt's dream" theory.
     
  2. spewey

    spewey Senior Member

    Location:
    Little Rock
    Walt's Dream Theory?? That was real...

     
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  3. mj_patrick

    mj_patrick Senior Member

    Location:
    Elkhart, IN, USA
    I don't think it ever jumped the shark. I do think it pushed plausibility in some of the events mentioned, but no one mentioned the first one that came to my mind:

    The magnent in a van outside the police station.

    That said, it's entertainment and it never jumped the shark for me.
     
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  4. Lovealego

    Lovealego Senior Member

    The fly episode.....I totally didn't get that one. I felt like it was a waste of 45 minutes and out of synch with the rest of the show.
     
  5. Thomas D

    Thomas D Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bradenton, FL
    I liked that episode. Not so much the first time I saw it, but the 2nd. Some ingenious photography and effects and acting. It's sort of like an old cartoon of, e.g., Roadrunner, or Sylvester the Cat trying to catch a mouse, but the mouse always gets away. And it wasn't just about the Fly, there were other things going on as well.
     
    Last edited: Jun 5, 2014
  6. nbakid2000

    nbakid2000 On Indie's Cutting Edge

    Location:
    Springfield, MO
    As far as the gang at the end goes, I get why people don't like it and feel it's tacked on. I feel the same way. HOWEVER, if you think about it, it could go to illustrate a point - how something so grand and magnificent can be taken down by something so simple.
     
  7. jwoverho

    jwoverho Licensed Drug Dealer

    Location:
    Mobile, AL USA
    I few hiccups here and there, but one of the best TV series ever. The quality of its writing, acting, and technical craft were such that the few aspects that seemed a little off were offset by the overall excellence of the series.

    I didn't catch the show while it was on, and binge watched over the course of a couple of months after the series finale. Seeing everything is such a compressed amount of time really had an affect on me, and I have to admit the saga of Walter White stayed with me for quite a while.

    Sometimes, all the elements come together in a project, BB was one of them.
     
  8. If I want reality, I'll watch the news. For entertainment purposes, I'm willing to suspend my disbelief a bit.
     
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  9. kevintomb

    kevintomb Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Either way, even if say a dozen plot points push credibility, one of the best shows I have had the fortune of watching.

    Honestly a testament to netflix, for having all 5 seasons!! That show alone was worth my 8 bucks, since I do not have cable TV.

    What amazes me looking back after watching it literally three times all the way through, is that how the message of getting into drugs and money and power, simply never works, never really is a solution, always ends up in casualties, or fear, or paranoia, or having ones family find out or having them wanting nothing to do with the person into drugs.

    Everything that seems to work at first, in the end, costs in another way. Walt keeps saying "just a bit more", but he is obsessed, and does not realize it. He has sold his soul, and there is no turning back. He can even see he is losing his family, he is almost okay with killing people as long as it is in his best interests.


    A normal person ( for most intents ) can slowly become evil. Glimpses of the former person come out at times, in their intelligence or caring, or even skinny pete playing Piano, but for most intents that former person is gone.
     
  10. kevintomb

    kevintomb Forum Resident Thread Starter


    I think what got to me emotionally.....I kept hoping Walt would "come back" and realize his mistakes and try to correct things, and come back to real life...but he was spiraling towards a drain, and did not seem to know or care.
     
  11. DreadPikathulhu

    DreadPikathulhu Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    Maybe they'll merge BB with Lost and we can look forward to a new final season with Walt in purgatory, righting his wrongs.
     
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  12. sound chaser

    sound chaser Senior Member

    Location:
    North East UK.
    I enjoyed it but it could have been a season shorter and there was way too many pensive facial close-ups IMO.
     
  13. DreadPikathulhu

    DreadPikathulhu Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    The magnet thing did stretch credibility, but I saw it as a caper episode leading up to the big one; the train heist.

    Is such a thing even possible? That would have been a good one for Mythbusters to tackle.
     
  14. Rockinrob

    Rockinrob Forum Resident

    Location:
    Tampa, FL
    I watched the show from season one and am a huge fan of the show, truly love it and love analyzing/thinking about it.

    You guys who binged watched it will all miss out on the tension of waiting a week in between episodes, and a YEAR before you found what happened to Gale, etc. It was a crazy experience and has been with me for 7 years. When Walt died and the show ended, it was kind of like saying goodbye to a friend in some ways.


    My only real complaint about the show was that the big enemy of the end was a basically generic group of Nazis. With the exception of Todd, they are the bad guys because they are Nazis, they are basically interchangeable with each other and rather flat compared to the other characters in the show.

    It seems to me a more varied and interesting "villain" would have made for a more interesting ending. I also feel that the machine gun scene was a bit out of character for the show (The Nazis couldn't duck out of the way???).

    The Fly may be one of the best episodes of the entire series. The tension while watching an inebriated Walt and wondering what would happen if he told Jessie about Jane was almost unbearable. Coupled with the extremely tense episode before this, when watching "Fly" in real time, I remember thinking, this will end soon and the plot will move. But it didn't. And that was an awesome way to slow it down, and make the viewer think. Definitely made for an interesting week both before the episode and after!

    That being said, it was both thought provoking and entertaining as a series, with many great plot twists, and deep characters to think about. Sopranos is still the best show with a perfect ending, but I really loved my time with Breaking Bad, and am thankful for the countless hours of speculation and discussion it sparked between me and my wife and friends, and the fun viewing parties I hosted every week for the last 4 years!
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 6, 2014
  15. Thomas D

    Thomas D Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bradenton, FL
    The train heist seemed like a very well conceived idea by the writers from a theoretical view, but in reality it would depend on a whole lot of luck and more time than they had. And these guys had never done anything like that before yet they handled the tools, etc. with absolute perfection and incredible speed. Still, one of my top 5 episodes.
     
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  16. kevintomb

    kevintomb Forum Resident Thread Starter



    How they were able to figure almost exactly where the train would stop?? I mean, ya you can figure a certain speed and how fast a train can stop, but that is a HUGE variable, as to whether they would really try to stop and if the brakes would really lock up the wheels.
    I figure there would be maybe a couple hundred feet of leeways, not the 20 feet they portrayed.


    The big dump truck stuck on the tracks......loaded with dirt.

    Oh ya a guy in a "poser" pick up, just says, hey let me push it, damage the front of my truck, and oh ya, it just so easily is able to move it.

    It seemed to be able to move it, a bit too easily. I have been witness to guys with pick ups doing stuff like that, and it was far more stressful on a pick up to try to do that. Roaring engine, tons of torque twisting the cab and bed, and tires spinning and jittering, and in fact looked horribly wrong to ruin a small truck even trying to do that.
     
  17. Schoolmaster Bones

    Schoolmaster Bones Poe's Lawyer

    Location:
    ‎The Midwest
    I share Anthony Hopkins' eloquent summary, worthy of repeat here:

     
  18. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Let's assume they did have a chance to practice on some pipes somewhere else, and understood how to use the tools and how they'd have to handle the tubes and pumps. I don't have a problem with that.

    I rewatched the Train episode recently and it blew me away a second time. I love that episode. The climax where Todd shoots the kid was a gut-punch, because the audience was completely giddy with relief that our "regulars" managed to get away with their heist... only to have that one loose end show up. I thought that was devastating.
     
  19. Thomas D

    Thomas D Forum Resident

    Location:
    Bradenton, FL
    Yes. I've thought of that. Perhaps they could have gotten the schematics and such from Lydia and practiced. I forget how much time they had in advance though. Very well directed and thought out episode, over all. In fact, brilliant.
     
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  20. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    The thing I loved about it was that the writers and director got the audience totally enthused about hoping that Walter and his gang would actually pull off the heist... and they did it, against incredible odds. And then there was that one little problem. I think when that episode was first aired, my neighbors almost called the police because I was running around the house screaming, "NOOOO! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" on that final shot.
     
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  21. Tristero

    Tristero In possession of the future tense

    Location:
    MI
    I really loved the first three seasons, plus the fifth, but the show started repeating itself and running out of ideas until it really fell apart for me by the end. Tony grew progressively less sympathetic and I couldn't care less about him after he killed Christopher. I wasn't invested in the final conflict with him and Phil, who didn't have enough gravitas as a nemesis to me--it felt pretty anti-climactic after the dramatic highs of previous seasons. Breaking Bad was solid every season for me overall, with occasional weak spots.
    Though I think I liked the finale a bit more than you did, I agree with a lot of your points here. For me, the real climax of the whole series was "Ozymandias". That was one of the most gripping hours of television that I've ever experienced, thoroughly satisfying. Everything after that was pretty much tying up loose ends, though they needed to do that. I did feel like they largely let Walt off the hook, allowing him to go out on his own terms and sort of redeem himself a bit after they had gone so far to make him into this destructive monster. I really wanted him to be held accountable by the end.

    Sure, there were points where they stretched credulity or made missteps. I started to find Jesse's angst and gruesome punishment to be over the top and tiresome after a while--throwing all of that money around randomly, being forced to watch Andrea get killed, etc. It got gratuitous, but the show did so many other things right that I was willing to overlook it in the end.
     
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  22. This to me was the most far-fetched thing that happened on Breaking Bad, and I too am surprised it took so long to be mentioned...

     
  23. DreadPikathulhu

    DreadPikathulhu Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    I was speaking more about the magnet scene than the train heist, but both would make a good Mythbusters episode. For the train heist, I just assumed that they'd planned well and were lucky, but with the magnet I really would like to know if you can power an electromagnet with car batteries, erase a hard drive and make things on the other side of a wall fly around.
     
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  24. BurgerKing

    BurgerKing Forum Resident

    You can because I say so.
     
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  25. mrstats

    mrstats Senior Member

    Certainly one of the "weaker" episodes, but I have to disagree with you about it "jumping the shark".
     
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