Talk about getting the chemistry right. It's official. Everyone is obsessed with Breaking Bad. The latest and final season saw a surge in viewers though that was not the case for the show in earlier seasons.
Uproxx has put together the roundup of early reviews for Breaking Bad, and well, as you can see below later, not everyone thought it would be a hit.
The Washington Post thought it could be a cult hit
"Be those things as they may, 'cult hit' still seems the most that the creators of 'Breaking Bad' can hope for."
"As created by writer-producer Vince Gilligan (a surname that may send the wrong message for someone pursuing a serious career in television), "Breaking Bad" sometimes suffers from an overabundance of dialogue and scenes that stretch on too long with repetition and pauses."
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The Chicago Tribune" didn't even bother watching.
"Yet my recommendation -- and I do think the show is worth checking out -- is not as hearty as I'd like it to be. "Breaking Bad" reminds me of TNT's "Saving Grace," another cable series that started strong then began to fizzle soon after its promising premiere."
New York Times compared it to Weeds:
"This crime story is in many ways a bleaker male version of 'Weeds,' Showtime’s comedy about a widowed soccer mom who sells pot to keep up with the Joneses."
Slate also compared it to Weeds:
"Breaking Bad often tries to make like a Coen brothers' edition of Weeds. Its achievement rarely matches its ambitions, but the effect is still pretty dope."
NYMag defended the show from the Weeds comparison:
"Bryan Cranston, whose Walter White in Breaking Bad is a high-school chemistry teacher cooking up crystal meth in a used RV in the New Mexican desert, shouldn’t remind anybody of Mary-Louise Parker, whose Nancy Botwin in Weeds is a soccer mom selling pot in pastries and popcorn to the whiter part of a Southern California town, unless you’re dumb, numb, and weird."
HuffPo was stunned with Bryan Cranston's performance.
"If your idea of a dashing leading man doesn't include a guy in his fifties wearing his Fruit of the Loom briefs and a lab smock, then you're not watching the right shows. Bryan Cranston is one of television's most under-appreciated actors."
NYMag knows a winner when they see one:
"Cranston’s Walter is already a winner. He reminds me of Robin Williams’s Tommy Wilhelm in the film version of Saul Bellow’s Seize the Day, back in 1986, when Robin Williams was still wonderful to watch."
IGN says its all about Cranston. And they are right:
"And Cranston – Cranston! He delivers in this show. He's quiet, he's passionate about chemistry and he's a bit of a wreck. He is Walt. When he's talking about chemistry, when he's holding a gun in his hand, even when he closes the glove compartment in his car, he's Walt."