LOST (ok, that’s technically beyond 10 years now) and Narcos are two that immediately come to mind. But, Breaking Bad hooked me from the beginning as well.
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The first episode of Breaking Bad was interesting but I quit after 4-5 episodes when the guy who ripped him off offered to pay for his treatment and he turned him down. It was at this point that I realized that Walt was a selfish person and I didn’t really care to watch him get worse.
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Not necessarily.
I went from pitying Walter White, to rooting for him as he finally grew a spine, to utterly loathing him, and back to rooting for him again, one last time at the end.
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It sort of reminds me how awesome The Sopranos was supposed to be. And when I tried to watch it, all I could think of was that criminal behavior must be more interesting to others than it is to me. Same with Breaking Bad. The whole premise of it just bores me.
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I loved Breaking Bad. I might even like Better Call Saul more.
Yes, they’re pretty different.
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I think that was skylar’s arc too.
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And yet very similar themes of failure and powerlessness, with a “heist” style turnaround/redemption.
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Nah; I hated Skyler in the beginning.
I hated her mid-series. I hated it that the writers actually made me feel sorry for her, once Walt’s metamorphosis was undeniable. And I hated her only a tiny bit less at the end.
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Yeah it all goes downhill from there with his selfishness. 
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My wife dropped after the body in the bathtub. So I kept watching while she knit. Until one night she said “why don’t you watch one more episode now?”
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My late next door neighbour was a junkie (he was remarkably trustworthy despite that), and I used to watch a fair bit of stuff with him.
Come ten pm, he’d invariably start nodding off, and that was it. Except for when we were watching Breaking Bad - he was riveted. It could be four in the morning, an episode finished, and he’d be on the edge of his seat, asking if we could watch another one.
Sadly, he didn’t make it to the finale. RIP, Horst.
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I watched it straight through, and I enjoyed it, but I wouldn’t say I was obsessed. It was just a watchable show at a time where I considered most shows unwatchable. The show had a vaguely Coen Brothers feel to it, and Walter’s character interested me. From the very beginning, I could tell that he had either one hell of a backstory or one hell of a character arc. I could also tell that it would have been a very different show had the writers’ strike not happened.
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*chucklez
What… she wasn’t amused by the Emilio clean-up detail?
Gross as it was, I laughed my ass off at the first instance of Walt’s hubris being the bane of his own existence.
Had he been less of a dick and simply explained to Jesse why that particular type of plastic container was so important, none of that hot mess would have happened.
https://uproxx.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/02-1-tub-fall.gif?w=650
(Pun intended.)
ETA:
Wait… you mean like literally strung out on narcotics?
Damn, that’s morbidly ironic.
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I watched heaps of awesome shit with the guy, and BB was the only thing that cut through the smack haze enough to prevent the the snooze-lose.
Kinda like meth might’ve…
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Wow.
I have no words.
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Well, how can a man with a Spike avatar not have great taste in entertainment?
I was extremely excited when it came out, but I stopped watching during the first season. Maybe a little too brutal for where I was at the time.
I crawled back on the horse, though, and watched them all last year and they are amazing.
My friend base, however, seems as divided as this board. It does have some sort of masculinity thing going for it, that if you’re not into you’re not into.
But it’s the same reason I always tear up reading Harry Potter.
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I think the first season hams up the violence to an almost off-putting level. Actually all the seasons have those elements. But it takes a subtle mind to appreciate the nuance of the series despite these moments. It definitely gets better later, after driving away the erudite snobs in the early parts of the series
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I guess I don’t see how that is being selfish. That’s just having self-respect. There’s really few things worse than having somebody pity you and offer to help you out financially. You know they think they are better than you just because they are richer. And that they are such good people by giving a bit to others. That doesn’t justify Walt’s descent into drug-dealing and murder, of course, but why should he grovel before Schwartz like a medieval serf before his lord?
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There was definitely a subtle tonal shift between seasons 1 and 2. While there was always dark humor it seemed to get a bit more subtle in season 2 and beyond.
There were still brilliantly funny moments. Like this perennial favorite of mine:
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