Once in a while you get a TV show that balances award winning acting with good writing, excellent characters, fantastic direction, great soundtrack, and that magic ingredient that glues all those things together. When that happens you should get a show that appeals to critics and audiences alike but it doesn’t always work out that way. Sometimes these TV shows are only seen by handfuls of people who then start talking about it to anyone who will listen.

One of the main examples of this is ‘The Wire’. People hail it, rightly so, as the greatest TV show ever created. The levels of drama are unparalleled and every element fits together to form a perfect TV show. Regardless of this fact it was seen by very few people when it first aired and it was a show that developed by word of mouth. The DVD sales have been astronomical. Another show that suffered the same fate, regardless of its excellence was Arrested Development. It was one of the funniest TV shows I’ve ever seen but it was cut short long before its time.

Breaking Bad has been on for three years. I’d heard people repeatedly proclaim it as the best thing on TV after The Wire’s departure but never got around to watching it. I’d heard people mention the depth of the story line and the richness of the characters being the best on TV. I’d heard how it was unlike any other show on TV. All those people were right.

I’m not going to talk about the story line of the 33 episodes that have been shown so far. I’m only going to go as far as mentioning the first episode. Breaking Bad is a TV show about Walter White. He’s a high school chemistry teacher who finds out he has inoperable lung cancer that is stage three. He’s suffering a mid-life crisis. He has a 16 year old son and his wife is pregnant again. They weren’t expecting another child. Through an interesting series of developments he teams up with a former student of his and they start to cook methamphetamine - crystal meth. Don’t let the drugs put you off what is an phenomenal TV show. Just think of the meth as a catalyst for story development.

The first series has 7 episodes with series 2 and 3 having 13 episodes each. It is the first time in a very long time that I’ve been as engrossed in a TV show as much as this. I watched 6 episodes a day to get caught up. Not only that but there were a few moments where my jaw actually dropped because of what I was seeing portrayed. That’s not something that happens very often with me. As the series went on we were introduced to new characters who were as deep and three-dimensional as those were introduced to in the first episode. You can’t help but get addicted.

Please, do yourself the favour of watching this TV show. It really is worth your time.

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