Since the holidays, I've zoomed through the first two seasons of Breaking Bad on Blu-ray. As I finish up the second season and patiently await AMC to replay the third season, I must say this is quite a rewarding show.
Praise for the show is hard to escape. Donna and Noel have covered the show for the A.V. Club, but I had never read any of their reviews because they delve into major spoiler territory. As much as I think spoilers shouldn't spoil the enjoyment of a show if it's actually a good show, Breaking Bad is so unpredictable that you don't want to really know what's coming next.
All this said, without going into spoilers here, I must say I'm pretty reluctant to own the series on DVD.
Shortly into watching the first season, I kept thinking about my feelings on Six Feet Under. I don't regret for a second investing into the show's first couple of seasons. But once I saw another episode, it was hard for me to rewatch the same episode. It's easy for me to coast through a show in order to follow the various plotlines. Yet, aside from BSG and LOST, I'm not really one to go back over various episodes of hour-long dramas. (Matt has been my housemate for over a year and I've never really had the urge to go through his copies of the Six Feet Under series.)
There is something emotionally exhausting at play in these shows. I applaud the show's creators for going there and giving viewers something way more than mindless entertainment. But how many times do I repeatedly want to see a husband lie to his wife, watch people throw their lives away with drugs, and suffer in general? Not really much, frankly.
As I've collected DVDs over the years, I've been a little hesitant about collecting an entire series of a great show with a low rewatch factor. I can watch episodes of Seinfeld, The Cosby Show, or Dinner for Five over and over again, and I reserve the right to revisit a random episode of LOST or BSG at any point in the near future.
Of course, all of this could be null and valid depending on how I feel about Breaking Bad when I finish the third season. But the way things are going, I think I'm going to feel the same.
Praise for the show is hard to escape. Donna and Noel have covered the show for the A.V. Club, but I had never read any of their reviews because they delve into major spoiler territory. As much as I think spoilers shouldn't spoil the enjoyment of a show if it's actually a good show, Breaking Bad is so unpredictable that you don't want to really know what's coming next.
All this said, without going into spoilers here, I must say I'm pretty reluctant to own the series on DVD.
Shortly into watching the first season, I kept thinking about my feelings on Six Feet Under. I don't regret for a second investing into the show's first couple of seasons. But once I saw another episode, it was hard for me to rewatch the same episode. It's easy for me to coast through a show in order to follow the various plotlines. Yet, aside from BSG and LOST, I'm not really one to go back over various episodes of hour-long dramas. (Matt has been my housemate for over a year and I've never really had the urge to go through his copies of the Six Feet Under series.)
There is something emotionally exhausting at play in these shows. I applaud the show's creators for going there and giving viewers something way more than mindless entertainment. But how many times do I repeatedly want to see a husband lie to his wife, watch people throw their lives away with drugs, and suffer in general? Not really much, frankly.
As I've collected DVDs over the years, I've been a little hesitant about collecting an entire series of a great show with a low rewatch factor. I can watch episodes of Seinfeld, The Cosby Show, or Dinner for Five over and over again, and I reserve the right to revisit a random episode of LOST or BSG at any point in the near future.
Of course, all of this could be null and valid depending on how I feel about Breaking Bad when I finish the third season. But the way things are going, I think I'm going to feel the same.
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