TCA '09: AMC’s ‘Breaking Bad’ Promises More Fun Mistakes
Series Creator Discusses Inspiration, Plot Themes for Dark Series
By Linda Haugsted -- Multichannel News, 1/8/2009 12:50:00 PM
MCN TCA Coverage
Los Angeles—Fans of AMC's Breaking Bad may wonder where the macabre ideas come from for plot points in the award-winning series, and creator Vince Gilligan gave TV critics a simple answer: He's always been a big fan of Popular Science.
Referring to a scene last season where characters in the show erred trying to dispose of a body with hydrochloric acid in a bathtub, Gilligan related how he'd read an article years ago, noting that the acid will eat through glass and ceramics but not plastic. He remembered that and decided it would be a "fun mistake" for his characters to make.
Cast members said Walt White, the meth-making high school chemistry teacher with terminal cancer played by Emmy-winner Bryan Cranston, will be pressed to new levels of desperation this season. A major clue to how the season will end will be contained in the first episode, Gilligan said, leading to a "slam-bang" ending to season two, he promised.
Viewers will notice changes, even including the settings. Gilligan said the house that was one of the major settings for the show was "sold out from underneath us." The owner of the Albuquerque home the production used sold the property, forcing the production team to scramble to write a relocation into the script.
He teased that there may be a "ray of light" regarding Walt's health, acknowledging the show would not want to kill off the character should they be lucky enough to have a third season.
The second season will begin March 8. Cable viewers in Comcast Corp., Cablevision Systems Inc. and Charter Communications Inc. systems, among others, can catch up with Season 1 on VOD beginning Feb. 9.
In other news, the channel wrapped filming in Africa at the end of last year of a "reimagining" of the 1960s classic The Prisoner. Jim Caviezel (The Passion of the Christ) takes the Patrick McGoohan role of Six, with Ian McKellen playing the "patriarch" Two, of the prison known as The Village. The latter location, a Welsh village in the original, is now a series of A-frame structures in a real town in southern Africa.
Producers said McGoohan was asked to play a cameo in the series but the actor is now unable to travel.
The production will include six episodes. Producer Trevor Hopkins said the story “comes to a conclusion,” but with choices as to the resolution to the story in the skein. That would appear to leave wiggle room for more of the series, but producers didn’t say if there may actually be a future season.
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