AARON MARCUS

Breaking Bad

Purpose

The purpose of the show was to get more people to subscribe to the channel AMC and to entertain people, keeping them coming back for more.AMC is a paid, subscription based, basic cable and satellite television channel. AMC only airs in the US and they licence out their shows to other channels in other countries, e.g. Fox TV UK or Sky Atlantic. The show is meant to make the audience feel sympathy for Walt, even though he is committing the crimes.

Form and style

Breaking Bad was 5 seasons long, with the number of episodes ranging from 7-16 per season.Each episode ran for approximately 48 minutes in length, except the teaser, which was 58 minutes in length.The series follows Walt as he comes to turns with his cancer diagnosis and how he becomes the king of the meth business. There are several subplots which advance the story along throughout the series, each of the subplots lasted over an average of about 3 episodes, some last longer.

Mood/Themes

There is a mood/feeling of sympathy throughout the series, towards Walt. This is created by making the audience view him as a victim of society. He was already struggling to stay afloat on his low income job, a pregnant wife with an unexpected baby and a 15 year old son with cerebral palsy. He is then diagnosed with cancer and has medical insurance that wont cover his treatment. It is portrayed that his government won’t help him. So he must sink low enough and turn to crime in order to stay alive.

Content

The show is set in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where Walt lives. Throughout the series there is one central setting – Walt’s house. All the action always goes back to here, showing how all of this is connected to Walt’s home life.The central message throughout is how America is a failed country/dream that can’t support its own people, or itself. The camera work in breaking bad is extremely good. The types of shots used tend be mainly wide angle, tripod shots. Letting the viewer look at what they want, but also framing it so we see what the director wants us to see. Close-ups are used when absolutely needed to get some information across to the viewer.

Key Characters

Walter WhiteJesse PinkmanSkyler WhiteWalt JrHank SchraderSteve gonzalezMarie SchraderGus FringTodd AlquistMike ErhmantrautSaul GoodmanLydia Rodarte-Quayle

Meaning

The meaning of this show is to demonstrate how little America cares for its own people. Walter White is “an extremely overqualified high school chemistry teacher”[1], even though he has extremely good qualifications he is unable to get a job.Also, when he is diagnosed with cancer his own government does nothing to help him and he is forced to turn to crime to support his own family, showing how little his country cares.

Genre

Breaking Bad is a drama. With a slight cross over with action, however there is actually very little. There are some violent scenes, but they are not very fast paced.

Target Audience

There is no real target audience for this show, because it appeals to many different types of people. However, there is an age limit for 18 and above, this is because of the dark and mature themes and extreme violence, which for some viewers is too much, throughout the series. Generally, the show appeals to anyone who likes dark drama and action. I also think many types of people were drawn towards the show because it depicts a helpless man, with cancer, who is trying to fight the system. Teens were attracted the to action and crime side of the show whilst the adults were also attracted towards the drama that they may be able to relate to.The wide target audience is also further supported by how Toys R Us were selling children’s figurines of the shows characters.Breaking Bad has a rating of 9.5 [2] on IMDB – one of the highest ever obtained. One episode, Ozymandias, has perfect score of 10[3] which is extremely hard to obtain in IMDB.

Frequency

The show was spread across 6 years. The first 4 seasons had one new episode shown each week.The 5th season was split into two, with half being shown in 2012 and the other half in 2013.Although average viewing figures steadily climbed as the series progressed from 1 million per episode to 5 million per episode, with a spike to 10 million for the final episode, most of the shows popularity was gained via online streaming, with many people binge watching the show in a matter of weeks or even days on Netflix, which still has a growing popularity for the show. Breaking Bad is also one of the most illegally downloaded TV shows, with the final episode gaining 500,000 illegal downloads within 12 hours of original release.