| 88 |
New York Post Linda Stasi
The acting is as good as you'll see on TV (take a hard look at the genius of RJ Mitte, who really does have CP). And the script and plot are as out-there as creator/writer/producer Vince Gilligan's other series, "The X-Files." |
| 88 |
USA Today Robert Bianco
Bad brings new life and depth to an old one: Malcolm in the Middle's Bryan Cranston, riveting and remarkable as a chemistry teacher who finds a more commercial use for his skills. |
| 83 |
Entertainment Weekly Ken Tucker
Breaking Bad mixes desperation and deviousness to yield a volatile, valuable product. |
| 80 |
Hollywood Reporter Barry Garron
Give Gilligan credit for a pilot, written mostly as one long flashback, that is suspenseful and surprising. Cranston is always fun to watch and Bad is no exception. What's more, a strong supporting cast suggests there is a lot of room for this series to grow. |
| 80 |
LA Weekly Robert Abele
What this sharp if unsettling show wants to meet head on is middle-class angst, the quiet desperation that starts to unravel in the upstanding when their obligations suddenly seem insurmountable--or what happens when the folly of controlling one's destiny starts to resemble the riskiest of lab experiments. |
| 80 |
Newsday Diane Werts
Creator Vince Gilligan ("The X-Files") never loses touch with the mundane reality that so brilliantly magnifies its absurd horrors. |
| 80 |
San Jose Mercury News Charlie McCollum
Occasionally, something will pop up to remind us of just how good television can be when smart writers come up with an intriguing concept and execute it well. A case in point is Breaking Bad, an edgy, challenging new series. |
| 80 |
Variety Brian Lowry
Series creator Vince Gilligan brings a quirky sensibility to the pilot, and the show grows increasingly rich and absorbing in the second and third hours. |
| 80 |
Los Angeles Times Robert Lloyd
It's very good, although as sad and disturbing as the mustache implies. |
| 80 |
Time James Poniewozik
It's an uneven Coen Brothers--like mix of dark comedy and darker moral drama, but Cranston is amazing as a desperate, conflicted gangsta-nerd. |
| 80 |
TV Guide Matt Roush
Grisly and wacky, suspenseful and sorrowful, this darkly compelling cautionary fable of very abnormal chemistry is infused with a Coen Brothers-like flavor of macabre humor. |
| 80 |
Philadelphia Inquirer Jonathan Storm
It's unpredictable and stimulating, like the drug that White manufactures, but it produces a much safer high. |
| 75 |
Detroit Free Press Julie Hinds
It sets up a scenario that sends Walt, played by Bryan Cranston ("Malcolm in the Middle"), on an unpredictable, surprisingly fun-to-watch journey that frees him from his law-abiding past. |
| 75 |
San Francisco Chronicle Tim Goodman
Breaking Bad promises seven compelling and unique hours of drama. |
| 70 |
Chicago Tribune Maureen Ryan
The show, so far, doesn’t have quite the right ingredients--it could use something more combustible in the mix. |
| 70 |
Philadelphia Daily News Ellen Gray
Breaking Bad is a bit of a load, more weighted than wacky, and surprisingly predictable for a show whose main character is first discovered wearing a gas mask but no trousers. |
| 70 |
Newark Star-Ledger Alan Sepinwall
Cranston's performance alone is enough to keep me watching for a while, but I'd like to see something resembling a completed formula, and soon. |
| 70 |
The New York Times Alessandra Stanley
It’s the pacing that makes Breaking Bad more of a hard slog than a cautionary joy ride. It has good acting, particularly by Bryan Cranston (“Malcolm in the Middle”), who blends Walt’s sad-sack passivity with glints of wry self-awareness. |
| 70 |
New York Magazine John Leonard
Not enough of Breaking Bad was available for preview to decide whether the supporting cast will eventually satisfy as much as "Weeds" regulars like Elizabeth Perkins, Kevin Nealon, Tonye Patano, and Justin Kirk, but Cranston’s Walter is already a winner. |
| 70 |
The New Yorker Nancy Franklin
Breaking Bad is very well done, but it has a bleakness that seems to be manufactured for no good reason. In its spiral down toward nothingness, Breaking Bad pulls viewers down with it, just because it can. |
| 70 |
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Rob Owen
In such rare instances [in the second episode], Breaking Bad achieves a perfect moment of nerdy believability, but too often the series fails to provide details that would help explain its characters' illogical choices. |
| 70 |
Washington Post Tom Shales
Viewers who like to tiptoe over to the dark side now and then--at least once a week--are bound to find Walt White's wonderland of woes worth a visit or two, or many more. |
| 63 |
New York Daily News David Hinckley
Based on Sunday's opener, Breaking Bad falls around the middle of the pack in the new wave of cable dramas. It's no "Mad Men." |
| 60 |
Boston Globe Matthew Gilbert
You can feel creator Vince Gilligan (of "The X-Files") straining to build an emblematic American fable and forgetting to fill in his story with particularities and believable motivations. |
| 60 |
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Melanie McFarland
Breaking Bad is a show constructed around a self-conscious edginess. You have to push past this edge and be willing to step inside before discovering any depth. |
| 60 |
Slate Troy Patterson
Its achievement rarely matches its ambitions, but the effect is still pretty dope. |
| 50 |
Chicago Sun-Times Doug Elfman
Breaking could be a good study of acting, since Cranston and Aaron Paul (as his partner, Jesse) get under the grimy skin of their characters. But there's not enough of the good stuff, like writing, directing, mood, cinematography--you get the point. |
