December 28: Five-Minute Breaking Bad

[Zeke]

Season five of Breaking Bad premiered yesterday, so I took the opportunity to advertise this fiver. (I also whipped up a new image for the page.)

While I'm here, a couple of things I meant to answer before...

Hydrogen, Tungsten, Lithium? I suppose it could be a tungsten hydride of some sort.

It's a reference to how they do the credits in the show. Each name has at least one elemental symbol emphasized; the main cast are Bryan Cranston, AnNa Gunn, AAron Paul, and so on. It's cute, but I'm betting at least half the audience doesn't get it.

Haven't seen the show (though I've heard it talked up as well). Did you like it?

Yes and no. I'm halfway through Season 2 so far; it's very good television, no question, but I don't really enjoy watching it. The heart of the show is Walt and the path his decisions lead him down. Apparently the writers' goal was to start with him sympathetic and make him gradually less so. Didn't work for me -- I despise Walt, and have from day one. He's like the Platonic ideal of dealing with your problems wrong. His noble goal of making enough money to support his family justifies everything: hurting people with the drugs he makes, keeping Pinkman stuck in a life he wants to escape, rejecting friends' kindness, kidnapping and killing people, telling lies within lies within lies... and most pathetic of all, driving away the very family he's doing it all for. He's using what little remains of his own life to make everyone else's hell.

I still have a couple of seasons to catch up on, so my opinion may change. But I've never related to Walt -- and I'm appalled at the idea that I should.

[evay]

Yeah, the show never appealed to me from the beginning. There are, surprisingly, enough powerful, well-written, well-acted, well-produced TV shows out there which don't involve breaking the law and making people suffer as part of the show's premise that Breaking Bad never even caught my potential interest. I don't care how much praise it gets; I'm not going to watch.

Leverage started S5 last night too, and that's a helluva lot more fun. I believe Alphas and Warehouse 13 start their seasons either tonight or next Monday, Merlin S5 comes on in the fall, Once Upon a Time and Person of Interest were both renewed for S2, we still have to finish the entire back half of Grimm... We have enough to watch. Hell, I even finally picked up Doctor Who after being nagged by my best friend for two years, so we'll start watching that at some point this summer.

[Sa'ar Chasm]

I still have a couple of seasons to catch up on, so my opinion may change. But I've never related to Walt -- and I'm appalled at the idea that I should.

People keep telling me "You're a chemist, you should watch it." Here's the thing...most science on TV makes my degree hurt. I don't watch CSI because I'd be screaming "Wrong!" and throwing things at the TV within five minutes. Plus I don't really go in for angsty drama, people doing dumb things, and drug dealers.

Same deal with Glee: You like music and karaoke, you should watch Glee. First, most of the music I like predates my birth, so any current pop songs they do will be lost on me. Second, teen drama angst.

[Zeke]

Two plus points that I forgot to mention are the acting and dialogue. I never get tired of watching Aaron Paul as Pinkman -- his mixture of biting sarcasm and utter dumbassness can make even horrific scenes entertaining. (During a fight over who has to kill a witness: "Oh well, heil Hitler, bitch! And let me tell you something else. We flipped a coin, okay? You and me. You and me! Coin flip is sacred! Your job is waiting for you in that basement, as per the coin!") The DEA agent brother-in-law, Hank, is a lot of fun too; he's coarse but has a really good heart, to the point where Walt, who's at great risk having him around, still clearly likes him. And while I dislike Walt, the many viewers who praise Bryan Cranston's acting will get no argument from me.

The chemistry content of the show is mostly trivia, but sometimes Walt puts his knowledge to practical use for more than just making meth. Where other criminals would just hack off a lock or shoot it, he'll use hydrofluoric acid or thermite or something. The best example is this awesome scene.

Sa'ar: Oh, NOW someone mentions Glee. I was really into the show around the time I started that "what other shows should we do" thread, and I was secretly hoping someone would suggest it. It's pretty cheesy and pushes its agenda way too blatantly, but it's lots of fun too.

My actual favourite shows right now are How I Met Your Mother and Parks & Recreation, but fivers of those would be redundant.

[ETA: Hmm, a link to this fiver is now kicking around Facebook, but I can't tell where it originates. What I really need is to get it on StumbleUpon -- several of our fivers get frequent visits from there. Most frequent? Five-Minute Sailor Moon, believe it or not. 138 likes!]

[EETA: Turns out you can add a few links to your own site on StumbleUpon, just not too many. I've added this. We'll see what happens...]

[Alexia]

Me again, swinging by and reading about two previous posts to vaguely work out what's going on.

Four words: The Big Bang Theory.

I've been watching it solidly (save for the annoying times I need to work and sleep) for three weeks and am almost done with the first four series. It's brilliant