I'm linking to this because after writing that last post, I want to follow Boring as Heck. There, I added it to my blogroll. I don't know if I've ever done that based on reading only one post, but I can't read this "Breaking Bad" post. Not just yet. After bitching about and resisting nudging to watch the show, especially in the week leading up to the finale, I started watching one episode at a time.
I'd captured the first 20 or so episodes when AMC was running the whole series, in order, and I have a slight tendency to sit down at a certain point in the evening with the feeling that it's time to consume about an hour of television. I used to watch "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report," but the political topics of the day — insurance and budgets — have a dreariness that is not puffed into an amusing form by derision and head-slapping. I know comedy should hurt. I like edge.
But it's such a dull edge, and perhaps some fictional explosions and existential ennui would better enliven my hour in the comfy chair. So I've been dipping into the accumulated episodes of "Breaking Bad." I've gotten far enough that I wish I hadn't switched off its recording after 22. There's not endless space in that DVR box, and we had about 100 post-season baseball games to keep track of before the World Series even begins, and then there are all those football games. Meade would watch these things live, and I wouldn't watch them at all, but put us together and the DVR is needed to control the flow of commercials, which I can't face with passivity. Some of them — I'm talking to you, "Jeremy" — bother me even in fast-forward.
So, with the nudging to watch it gone, I'm quietly, slowly consuming "Breaking Bad." I'll eventually reach then end, where "Lingering Questions" will be relevant to my slowly-catching-up experience. But I wanted to pin down that Boring as Heck post and thought it might matter to those of you who are beyond spoiler alerts.
October 22, 2013
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16 comments:
When on earth will you have the time to watch a hundred post-season baseball games?
The games are watched in semi-real time (and become irrelevant thereafter). We're not crazy!
Does this guy really not know what happened to Gus? Anyway, not to spoil, but he's on 'Revolution', now.
I thought I was going to do that marathon watching before the finale. But as soon as I would start watching I would think of something better to do, and would have an excuse to put it off.
For me, I think it's the availability factor. it's on Netflix I can watch it whenever I want, whenever I want becomes never.
Probably someone has posted Anthony Hopkins's letter to Bryan Cranston in a previous thread, but it's worth repeating an excerpt for the haters:
I’ve just finished a marathon of watching "BREAKING BAD" – from episode one of the First Season – to the last eight episodes of the Sixth Season...A total of two weeks (addictive) viewing.
I have never watched anything like it. Brilliant!
Your performance as Walter White was the best acting I have seen – ever...That kind of work/artistry is rare, and when, once in a while, it occurs, as in this epic work, it restores confidence.
You and all the cast are the best actors I’ve ever seen.
I watch it on Netflix. I'm in the high twenties. I don't binge view, but there's something deeply satisfying about having the next episode immediately available, when one episode ends on a cliffhanger.
If you stick with it all the way to the end, you'll be very pleased... it was I think the most satisfying ending to any series that I've ever seen.
People are funny about sports. You abhor dreariness and seek edge, but watch baseball RERUNS? It's bad enoug the first time through. Stand around and wait between pitches, inane commentary, batters stepping out of the box to perform some ritual before failing 7 times out of ten. And the commercials.
But I watch Premier League soccer, which others can't stand. At least you get 45 minutes of uninterrupted play per half, no time-outs, no innings, no commercials. The game starts and ends when it says it will.
To each her own.
Breaking Bad was a good show.
People are funny about sports. You abhor dreariness and seek edge, but watch baseball RERUNS? It's bad enoug the first time through. Stand around and wait between pitches, inane commentary, batters stepping out of the box to perform some ritual before failing 7 times out of ten. And the commercials.
But I watch Premier League soccer, which others can't stand. At least you get 45 minutes of uninterrupted play per half, no time-outs, no innings, no commercials. The game starts and ends when it says it will.
To each her own.
Breaking Bad was a good show.
I'm sticking the Get Smart (2008).
I skip the gags.
The Next Chapter button works great except for one place where I have to backspace a bit.
Annie: why not use your amazon portal and stream BBad from amazon (like we did) and pocket some coin at the same time. The althouse blog is always good for an amazon portal purchase.
I resisted watching Breaking Bad for a while, until my son in law convinced me. I watched every last one on Netflix, found myself riveted. Very very violent, but the dark humor was worth it.
Orange is the New Black was also great, same dark humor. It had less violence, more lesbian sex.
"People are funny about sports. You abhor dreariness and seek edge, but watch baseball RERUNS?"
We're not watching reruns. We're getting it on record so we can pause and fast forward. We might start a little late or take a break in the middle, but we usually catch up to real time and so forth. Sometimes we're a couple hours off, because it was a day game and we went out to do things.
"Annie: why not use your amazon portal and stream BBad from amazon (like we did) and pocket some coin at the same time."
I don't think I get the cut on my own purchases, but I will use Amazon at the point where I'm at the end of what I recorded.
I think everything but the final season is available for free through Prime if I'm not mistaken. I know Netflix had it as of a few months ago when I cancelled.
Warning: that boringasheck post is of the same species of "humor" as people singing badly on purpose in a radio commercial or youtube video. Pretend incompetence is simply not funny by itself and indistinguishable from trolling. Which, haha, I suppose I just got caught.
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