BREAKING BAD vs MAD MEN

both shows have done three seasons and while on the whole mad men probably has better, for longer, last season of breaking bad puts it over the top imo

Mad Men. I just finished season 1 of breaking bad and I like it (a lot) but Mad Men's scope and scale wins out.

Vampire Diaries

Breaking Bad Men

breaking bad is good but the subject matter doesn't interest me as much as mad men.

Breaking Bad Vs Weeds is a better comparison since they explicitly deal with the same subject. Obviously BB is better than Weeds though so maybe that's not fair (and I like Weeds).

breaking bad, I think

no, mad men

no, breaking bad

ugh

breaking bad is good but the subject matter doesn't interest me as much as mad men.

This.

Breaking Bad Vs Weeds is a better comparison since they explicitly deal with the same subject.

Except it's not a good comparison at all since Breaking Bad is a well-written show and calling Weeds "uneven" is being very nice to it.

If you've only finished season one of BB seems not in a great place to compare the two. BB has got better and better.

For me it's too hard to pick, the shows are too different.

I'm kind of amazed that anyone could be more interested in the subject matter of Mad Men, but whatever floats your boat...

TS: Dying of cancer v. dying of soul sickness

More people have seen Mad Men, so I think it will win, but it doesn't deserve the crown. And I like Mad Men a lot, but...

"Desperate but amazingly good-looking people" outperforming "desperate people who look like Brian Cranston." Shockah.

And to be fair, Brain Cranston is dying of soul sickness faster than Don Draper is.

this is actually really really hard. Before BB Season 3 I would have said MM, but now I'm not so sure. I'm gonna wait and see how S4 of MM unfolds before casting a vote...

You do not have the luxury of that much time.

need to catch up w/ breaking bad

Dunno how Breaking Bad manages to feel more involving than Mad Men, given the subject matter, maybe it's because you're allowed much more inside the characters' heads in Breaking Bad, in Mad Men you feel like more of an onlooker.

Also Breaking Bad is much funnier, so Breaking Bad wins.

Funnier? Really?

breaks my heart bad to do so but i voted mad men even tho i feel like breaking bad is more 'my show' - they are both v v good

If the questions is, "Why?" you answered it very badly.

MM has taken me aprox 20% deeper into ~thinking abt stuff~ but BB is 10% more my sort of thing as far as 'raw artistic expression and cultural truthfulness' so MM is around 10% better imo

Funnier? Really?

Yeah totally, I find Breaking Bad darkly hilarious. Mad Men is funny as well but it feels like it's mostly channeled through the less prominent characters, but the Breaking Bad central pairing of Jesse and Walt bring the lols pretty consistently. I'm only at the end of S2 though.

yeah BB is totally way more abt the lolz, closest comparison imo: the cohen bros

have only watched a handful of episodes of one and it was Mad Men, but i kind of dislike it to a degree that I voted for Breaking Bad even though i haven't seen it, neither just didn't seem to cut it.

Dunno how Breaking Bad manages to feel more involving than Mad Men, given the subject matter, maybe it's because you're allowed much more inside the characters' heads in Breaking Bad, in Mad Men you feel like more of an onlooker.

Also Breaking Bad is much funnier, so Breaking Bad wins.

― Matt DC, Wednesday, July 21, 2010 5:11 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

prob cuz BB is a fast-paced thriller at heart while MM is more opaque and contemplative

Mad Men, though I've only watched the first season of Breaking Bad. But even pitching S1 of BB against S1 of MM, I'd still definitely vote for the Sterling Cooper lot. Breaking Bad's really really good, but season 1 of Mad Men is probably my favourite first season of any US TV show I can think of, bar Twin Peaks.

they're both great, but there was something that kept me glued to MM that i haven't found in BB. apparently it's got even better. i guess i really hated cranston's wife was one thing. but there were some amazing eps and i want to get back into it.

they both have alliterative names which is cool, might all come down to whether you like B or M better

only one had a serge gainsbourg song named after it am i right

initials MM

i think on the whole BB is FUNNER... mad men can get boring at stretches. both are pretty good at mixing it up and being fairly unpredictable, which is nice

I voted Breaking Bad because Cranston and THE TENSION. Also I like Albuquerque more than New York.

Love Mad Men though of course. Maybe I'll have a different answer in 12-13 weeks. Probably. I hope so.

Also it's not such a stretch when you make it more about Walter, Jr./Flynn vs. the annoying Draper kids.

I don't really like Mad Men.

That's because you're in Boston (or thereabouts)

I think

eh, I think really it's more that I am not at all interested in the story

I acknowledge that it's well written and well acted, but I never want to watch it.

It's entirely possible that it's a white people thing.

Oh yeah, I went there.

nah, I have too many friends who aren't white who love the show to run with that line

(although sometimes I feel that way)

Seriously, though, I doubt the pre-civil-rights 60's has much romance unless seen from a perspective of white privilege, and a ton of it at that. Mad Men's nods to that don't make that different, they just make that nodded-to. You know?

Certainly, the ladies of Mad Men trample all over the ladies of Breaking Bad

that's not very nice of them

jesses new gf is fn smokin

"Nice" never got anyone an Emmy.

The ladies of Mad Men have to prove that they can keep up with the imagined woman of 2009 or 2010.

Both shows are to be applauded for achieving much more than might be suggested by their apparently tired basic premises. Pretty sure I groaned when I first heard them each described. But certainly The Sopranos is the ne plus ultra of that.

At least, I would think. Neither series was close to finished when they did this. (Wouldn't be 118 votes...28-5 for Mad Men.)

S4 of Breaking Bad, third time through. Just sort of happened: my brother-in-law was just starting, watched a couple of episodes, had lots of time to kill over Christmas, kept going.

More later, but I've noticed an episode common to a few series: the dark-night-of-the-soul episode, where one or more characters (who may or may not be drunk or medicated) talk deep into the night as they work through some crisis. In Breaking Bad, it's S3's "The Fly," an episode I don't love--one of S3's weaker ones, I'd say--but didn't mind as much this time, mostly because of Walt's great speech where he tries to figure out the exact moment when he should have died. In Larry Sanders, it's "Arthur After Hours," the night Artie bumps Ryan O'Neal and ends up getting drunk and hanging out with the custodian. And, the most famous example, Mad Men's "The Suitcase," Don ducking the call from California about Anna Draper. There must be others--didn't think it warranted its own thread.

Bottle Episodes?

In the middle of my first Breaking Bad re-watch after binging the show in 2015. Just finished S4E2 I think.

Finished yesterday. I know the overwhelming consensus is that Better Call Saul is the better series, but if I had to choose, I'd go with Breaking Bad. I'll readily concede that BCS is the more consistent series--BB really hits a lull in S4 where Walt and Jesse's break-up-to-make-up theatrics get a little tiresome--and by gradually turning Skyler into a zombie, the show essentially loses one of its best characters the last season or so. And there are other things that nag here and there; Vince Gilligan seemed to have learned some traps to avoid by the time he launched BCS.

But Breaking Bad regularly moves me in a way that BCS doesn't. Things like Walter and Jane's father in the bar, the scene I mention above from "The Fly," Hank talking about his summer job cutting down trees, Skyler and Marie reconciling. Saul is obviously a much more shaded character in BCS, but this time it really hit me that I enjoy him more in BB; his wry exasperation with Walter and Jesse produces one great line after another (including--forget the context--"Uncle Miltie proportions").

I'll probably watch El Camino a third time before the new season of BCS (plus the most recent BCS episode--rewatched the entire last season over the summer, so I won't do that again). And then, when that finishes, I'll look at the online timeline I found and finally put everything together in my head.

If I didn't think the results would be so lopsided, I'd start a Hank Schrader/Hank Kingsley/Hank Kimball poll. Kingsley would blow past Schrader going away; except for older posters, Kimball would elicit little more than "Who?" I think they're all great.

Looks like almost three years, so I started a rewatch tonight (4th time). Did anyone ever call attention to the great (in context) last line of the first episode? "Walt--is that you?"

Finished up last night. I won't scroll back, so I'll no dout end up repeating myself, but: mostly great, so many unforgettable episode-closing scenes, and I remain in the minority (I'm guessing) who think it's better than Better Call Saul. But I find the way it ends--the last two episodes--less satisfying (Badfinger excepted) than Mad Men, The Sopranos, The Americans, Friday Night Lights, Six Feet Under, or almost any famous prestige or whatever show I've seen. I don't like the brutalization of Jesse, the murder of Andrea, or the improbability of the contraption Walt rigs up to kill Uncle Jack's crew. I don't like losing Hank for the last couple of episodes, although I know that was inevitable. There's just so much Walt near the end, at a point where he really is a creep, even when he's sort of doing the right thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06t_KP7y8Ao

Funny! I take it by implication they'd already tested a few things that didn't pass muster--"magnets," I bet.

Wonderful performances, a lovingly-crafted show in general, but “Breaking Bad” is still basically gourmet schlock. The finale is dumb, bloody wish-fulfillment for the mooks who still identified with the poor beleaguered murderous antihero. It was always gonna be that.

I think most of the way, the series does a good job of undermining/deflating Walt's "woe is me" rationalizations, primarily via Skyler (best example being her great "I have to protect this family from the man who protects this family" line). The last couple of episodes, first in Walt's admission that he really did everything for myself, then in the way he saves Jesse, it's like there's a last-minute effort to ennoble him. I guess the best you could say is that the show leaves that ambiguous; he's both hopelessly selfish and capable of doing the right thing.

"did everything for himself"--one day, far into the future, I'll author an error-free post.

I think it’s simply that Vince Gilligan’s crowd-pleasing instincts won out at the end of the day, and unfortunately the loudest contingent of the BB crowd was the Walter White fanboy chucklefucks.

He pulled the rug out from under WW and then got scared and tried to force it back under him. Which emblematic of his whole approach, and one reason why this intensely watchable show starts to break down on rewatch, whereas something like the Sopranos or Deadwood never stops getting better.

still bothers me that Gilligan never found a way to get Neil Young's "Albuquerque" on either BB or BCS.

Never thought about that--would have been perfect for Walt's trek home at the end. He did make sure to nab "Crystal Blue Persuasion" and "Baby Blue."

i'd love to see a recut of the BB finale with 13th Floor Elevators "It's All Over Now Baby Blue" instead

That's good too--even the other guy's version would have fine--but I do think "Baby Blue" was both sublime and a complete surprise.

I think it's possible to find Walter heroic and likeable (in some ways) without being a "fanboy chucklefuck"! He's a fictional character, it's 100% okay to like fictional characters who are bad. Although - I'm glad I didn't encounter any of that awful online stuff until after I'd finished watching the series.

Agree the finale is too neat and the Jesse torture storyline is risible, though.

The torture, murdering Andrea right in front of him, it seems so unnecessarily punitive for a character who actually does become a better person through the course of six seasons (and who was so caring of kids the whole way). (I'm treating him like he's a real person rather than a fictional character, but that's to the show's credit--a well-drawn character does start to feel like someone you know.)

I've started a first-ever rewatch of BB because my partner never saw it. Possibly interesting experiment in that we watched BCS together already, however we've only watched S1 of BB so the connections aren't v strong yet (and she didn't even remember Krazy-8 or Tuco; obviously when Saul, Mike and Gus show up it will be more interesting).

Anyway, in some ways so far BB is better than I remembered — when I watched it it was at peak hype and I was skeptical despite watching the whole series — and while I was previously strongly BCS>BB I'm not as sure now. For one thing, BB is funnier than I thought. It seems deeply obvious to me now that Walt & Jesse are partially modelled on a classic mixed-opposites comedy duo, but I don't remember thinking about that much the first time (this is perhaps embarrassing in retrospect). And just in general there is a strong current of slapstick/farce that is more apparent to me now. Possibly the meth context seemed so much grimmer to me back then that it overrode my sense of humor or I found it kind of gross to be doing slapstick in that world? I guess I'm more jaded now lol

That said I again found the first season weirdly paced; the pilot is brilliant, but then it feels like you're stuck in Jesse's basement for a long time. It picks up after that, but for a short season of a generally intense show that little stretch, even if it's only like two eps, is a bit of a slog. Also there are moments where Jesse strikes me as almost offensively unrealistic, like presenting a Mike Judge character as real or something, and yet it kind of works? But overall so far it's benefiting a lot, like Mad Men did too, from not watching it through a screen of grandiose acclaim (much less toxic fanboy nonsense).

oh yeah another classic complaint re S1: I had to reassure my partner that Hank and Skyler get more depth over time. Extremely obvious observation: Cranston really made the show viable

Jesse famously one of those characters who was not supposed to be part of the main cast (was gonna be killed off in those first few eps somewhere irrc), but they realized they had something with his dynamic with Walt, so makes sense that he was more of a caricature at the outset.

The iconic image in all the ads from the first season was Walt standing in his tighty whities outside the RV, so the marketing team at least was tuned in to the humor as a selling point. Also the obvious predecessor to BB subject matter-wise was Weeds, which was an outright comedy. But agreed that BB much funnier than you might expect, part of the magic of the show is how it sustains this precarious balance of humor, tension, and style that by all rights shouldn't work.

the whole tonal arc of breaking bad was it started out as an almost absurd comedy about a teacher who makes meth and winds up being one of the bleakest things ever. i agree about the final stretch of the Jesse storyline, i generally these days have a problem w/feel-bad tv series, which is a bit different than tv shows where bad things happen to characters we like. the Andrea thing felt like an unrealistic moment that only existed to show you how far Gilligan was willing to take things, and while i recognize it was only a character it kinda showed to me that these characters just existed as pieces to be taken off the board for shock points rather than making it logical. by contrast i kinda feel like Hank's final moments were more earned and a logical result of Walter's villainy and duplicity.

I always thought the pilot was odd because it kind of had to set up the whole premises of the show, I suspect it was written before everything else hence why it feels a lot different in tone. There’s some frontal nudity in it too isn’t there? Idk it probably should’ve been like 3 episodes in total.

The show does an amazing job with Hank. He starts off as a one-note, racist clown--some of his byplay with Gomey is funny--but after the Tortuga incident and then his shooting (and difficult recovery), I think he becomes a nuanced character you empathize with. (If you can't get past the early Hank, fair enough.) I also really like how both Mike and Hank come to see Jesse as a decent person, significantly more so than Walter.

(Also add Hank's brutal beatdown of Jesse to the key events that change him.)

Yes always thought so about the portrayal of Hank changed dramatically but naturally during the course of the show.

There’s a scene in the fourth or fifth season, at the end of an episode, where Hank has a long monologue laying down all the evidence about Heisenberg. It’s so riveting - even though you basically know everything already! A great scene, a great piece of acting.

I mentioned that a few days ago on a different BB thread--one of the greatest scenes of the entire run. Obviously, don't watch this if you've never seen the show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiUmudjyuSw

The way he holds back the fingerprint till the last possible second, and that aw-shucks thing with his eyes at the very end--masterful acting.

Jesse famously one of those characters who was not supposed to be part of the main cast

If I ever knew that I'd forgotten it, so thanks Lavator that is actually helpful -- I feel like his back story doesn't quite add up in S1, so it makes sense.

And yeah frogbs, the pilot is very pilot-y though usually I mean that in a bad way, but here it's just really self-contained and exciting (I don't recall nudity though, would be surprising for AMC, no?) in a way where the shift into normal episode pace feels kind of rough

Hank's arc is a real achievement, yeah

I thought there was a moment where we see Jesse run out of an apartment building and we see a topless lady wave out the window. maybe I imagined that.

Hank I kinda figured was like Jesse, feels like they liked the actor enough to give the character more nuance and screentime. I also think it came out of a need to have one main character you could actually root for.

one of my favorite moments early on is when they go to Tuco's place and Hector is there. nothing about the Salamancas has been revealed nor has the overall tone of the show really, so Hector's character comes off as this bizarre Lynchian thing. you don't know if he's lost his mind or not. but you assume he's just a weird one-episode character. and then he winds up being very central to the entire plot.

and yes that scene with Hank is amazing, love how he goes Columbo at the end

You're remembering the woman from the first episode correctly--she's only on-screen for three or four seconds.

I never get tired of Lydia.

I thought there was a moment where we see Jesse run out of an apartment building and we see a topless lady wave out the window. maybe I imagined that.

No, it's there (although maybe only on the DVD/Blus): When we first see Jesse, we get a brief glimpse of the nude older woman he'd just been hooking up with. A weird footnote: The actress playing her, Linda Speciale, is probably most famous for starring as the 'Good Girl' in the early '80s Cult Teen Sex Comedy Screwballs.

i think BB really did a great job of flipping who you were supposed to be rooting for as the show progressed. at the start, you've got this cancer-stricken patient taking on major drug cartels and slipping under the police force. by the end, you want hank to catch his man and walt getting every awful thing coming his way.

not impt but I misread frog's post and for some mysterious reason thought he meant full frontal Walt

and yes that scene with Hank is amazing, love how he goes Commando at the end

I've not watched BB for some years, but my instinct is that BCS's subtler character study structure is no match for the sheer power of its parent show's bulldozing narrative drive.

The thing I remember being most impressed with as the seasons unfolded was its fearlessness when it came to upending the status quo and raising the stakes, something very rare in long form TV. The Sopranos is of course brilliant, but is a pristine insect frozen in amber compared to BB's rampaging dinosuar.

My instinct is also that it won't hold up as well on a rewatch (very much unlike the Sopranos), but I'm certainly due one in the next few years.

I feel like Mad Men hasn't had quite the legacy or cultural impact which may have been predicted at one point, though I certainly loved it for at least three or four seasons.

The thing I remember being most impressed with as the seasons unfolded was its fearlessness when it came to upending the status quo and raising the stakes, something very rare in long form TV. The Sopranos is of course brilliant, but is a pristine insect frozen in amber compared to BB's rampaging dinosuar.

This is really otmfm and what I loved so much about BB. Every time I started to feel like I knew where things were going and settled in to watch them unfold, they would just kick into hyperdrive and get there immediately, pivoting in some new direction that prevented things from ever feeling stale. With the obvious exception being Hank figuring it out, which they kept as an insanely effective, agonizingly slow burn over practically the whole show (though then when he does finally figure it out, the way his interactions with Walt go immediately afterwards are a great example of the former approach).

I think BCS actually equalled the highs of BB in say seasons 2-3, when it was really its own thing with a major focus on the machinations of the legal world, doubling down on the character study structure that you note. But after Chuck died and they started having to focus on moving the drug plot forward and tying the threads together, with the clock ticking towards the end of the show, it became more of an inferior version of BB (though the peaks are still many and sublime).

These are just my recollections having never done a rewatch of either

It really lost its way for at least a season after Chuck died, agreed.

As for the peaks you mention - the mall heist episode in the final season is as exciting an hour of TV as any BB produced.

absolutely. really right from the beginning BCS was killer at those methodical, procedural stretches. With Jonathan Banks of course but also Odenkirk. Remembering when he was editing those documents to change the address on the Mesa Verde paperwork, it was almost like they were gleefully attacking the challenge of "how boring a series of actions can we make riveting if we film them beautifully enough and have them carried out by a maximally entertaining character"

there's a very good recent podcast called Best Quality Vacuum where they're rewatching and critiquing BB episode by episode. Well worth a listen. Amazing to think the first eps of BB came out 16 years ago and to consider how much America and the world have changed since

But after Chuck died and they started having to focus on moving the drug plot forward and tying the threads together, with the clock ticking towards the end of the show, it became more of an inferior version of BB (though the peaks are still many and sublime).

personally I dont think it was inferior at all. maybe because I found Jimmy/Saul to be a much more fun lead than Walter and Lalo to be a better villain than Gus. also the fact that it was not as heart-poundingly intense as BB was. though it did get there. I do agree though once they got to the "putting all the pieces together" stage it did become less compelling

Remembering when he was editing those documents to change the address on the Mesa Verde paperwork, it was almost like they were gleefully attacking the challenge of "how boring a series of actions can we make riveting if we film them beautifully enough and have them carried out by a maximally entertaining character"

been rewatching some of the Saul Goodman clips from BB and in one of the first ones where he's talking to Badger and mixes him up with a public masterbator he says something like "just a little transpositional error, nothing a little white out can't fix"...kinda wonder knowing these guys if the whole idea for that plot came from that line

Amazing

The blurring continues.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/04/americas/narcocorrido-mexico-bands-us-trump-intl-latam

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHF0xlf-bjY