Breaking "Breaking Bad"

I've never been a regular viewer of "Breaking Bad." I was never hooked, and I didn't find it as compelling as the great dramas of the recent era.

As millions prepare for the series finale, let's dig into the archives for my Albuquerque Tribune review of the pilot episode. It's always tough to judge a show by its pilot, so this barely scratches the surface. I've since pretty much skipped to the final season, so I'm still not qualified to assess it as a whole, but I remain convinced that many of the performances beyond Bryan Cranston's are too often weak, the plot twists a bit far-fetched, and the writing above average but not great.

Here was my first impression from January 2008:

Welcome to Albuquerque, Bryan Cranston.

Thanks for helping make the city look so beautiful and so seedy at the same time.

Cranston, who used to play the dad on "Malcolm in the Middle," can share credit with "X-Files" veteran Vince Gilligan and the cinematographers on "Breaking Bad," the latest series from AMC debuting in January.

"Breaking Bad" stars a forlorn, frumpy Cranston and the craggy New Mexico landscape in the story of a cash-poor Albuquerque high school chemistry teacher who gets a dire diagnosis and decides to use his former Nobel-track prowess to cook up some primo meth and provide a nest egg to bequeath to his wife and handicapped teen son.

It's an interesting premise, and the producers vow that the series won't glorify criminal behavior but merely present a good man making bad decisions for complicated reasons. The results are mixed in the debut episode.

On the one hand, Walter is imbued with an unusual sense of bravado almost immediately after receiving his terminal diagnosis. Suddenly he's superman, staring down bullies much bigger and younger than he is and outwitting bad guys with guns.

On the other hand, Walter is often clad only in his underwear and shoes and socks (he doesn't want the smell of meth to get on his good clothes) and almost shoots his foot off trying to figure out how to work a handgun.

It's up to the rest of the seven-episode series to begin sorting out all the moral implications that get raised.

Albuquerque, meantime, often provides a picturesque setting, with the Sandias and mesas as pleasant backdrops. Cinematographer John Toll, whose work ranges from "Braveheart" to this year's New Mexico-shot "Seraphim Falls," was director of photography for the pilot. The rest of the series is credited to Rey Villalobos ("Risky Business," "Urban Cowboy").

While the landscape looks harsh but alluring, lurking inside innocuous suburban-looking neighborhoods are meth labs, pit bulls and seriously bad dudes.

Walter goes on a ride-along with Drug Enforcement Administration agents and watches one of these operations get taken down. When he spies a former student escaping out a window, he decides to blackmail the kid and corral him into a business proposition.
They buy an RV and drive it to the outskirts of Albuquerque, where Walter's mad chem skills produce top-notch meth.

The main drawback in "Breaking Bad" is the gap between the lead performance and the rest. Maybe Cranston is that good, but his supporting crew is surprisingly wooden, as if Gilligan urged the actors to be mechanical in some scenes.

Anna Gunn ("Deadwood") doesn't bring much to the pilot as the loving, understanding wife, and Aaron Paul looked a little lost as Jesse Pinkman, Walter's former student and new partner in crime.

Elsewhere, Walter's students and extended family are solidly two-dimensional. We get the stereotypical hard-ass buddy cops, one Anglo, one Hispanic. (Walter's brother-in-law, Hank, is a federal drug agent. Can you sense the tension yet?)

This whole production could easily be overwhelmed by Cranston, who was a force on the sloppy sitcom "Malcolm in the Middle" and who had a memorable turn as the dentist on "Seinfeld" in the 1990s.

Cranston has thrown himself into this character, a mix of Walter Mitty and Travis Bickle. He's pale and out of shape. His mustache is pathetic; his eyeglasses are depressing. We cringe as we watch the pilot episode establish his middle-age angst and desperation.
But often, while Cranston and his character are manic, about to burst, the rest of the gang is stuck in traditional TV Drama Land.

There's room for improvement all around, which isn't unusual after a pilot episode. (AMC didn't send out copies of the other six episodes in the series. You can catch a "Making of" preview on the cable channel three times in the next week, starting tonight at 10:30.)

AMC, which started out as American Movie Classics, has begun branching out into series drama, as a sort of junior HBO. AMC struck gold this past fall by tapping the "Sopranos'" crew of writers. Matthew Weiner's "Mad Men," the period drama about the ad game in Manhattan in 1960, scored decent ratings and charmed critics across the board.

"Mad Men" was strong from the start, rich in character, back story and plot. "Breaking Bad" might get there, but to succeed it will have to flesh out the rest of the cast and raise the stakes for our anti-hero.

It's hip these days to be a hardened criminal just trying to make ends meet and provide for the family. Tony Soprano and Dexter Morgan have mouths to feed and bills to pay; how they process their evil deeds can be the stuff of compelling drama.

Gilligan, perhaps, felt he needed to keep up with the Joneses and cover a lot of ground in the first episode. Walter's transformation is rather jarring.

We get two basic-cable explicit sexual situations with Walter and his wife (named Skyler, for some reason), which are intended to be not-so-subtle bookends to show us how defeated Walter starts out and how macho it can be to walk on the wrong side of the law.

In the end, the pilot episode offers a message that doesn't rise much above that of your typical rap video: deal drugs, earn cash and flaunt your virility with the ladies.

We'll see whether "Breaking Bad" rises above that credo and returns to Albuquerque to shoot more episodes.