Breaking Bad: The Complete Series

Just finished up the entire series...and I loved every second of it. No spoilers. But the show has high entertainment, and replay, value. I spent $119 on this (Amazon Deal of the Day), and I feel it was money well spent. At the current price of $136, it's still a good value.The picture quality was amazing, but it should be noted: from Season 4 on, the discs would sometimes refuse to load or take a long time loading. This has never happened with my BluRay player before, or with anything else since. Maybe every 1 out of 4 times loading, the disc would go THOK-A-THOCK-A-THOCK in the player & do nothing. Maybe that silly warning about using a current BluRay player comes into effect here? Anyway. Course of action: I ejected the disc (which took 45 seconds) and simply had it take the disc in again. Fixed it every time, and playback from that point on was flawless.The quality of the barrel & subsequent packing is simply fantastic. It is not only functional, but also a work of art. It's hard to describe the clear disks of plastic that are pictured surrounding the barrel, but here goes: They're multiple disks that hold the BluRays in each season. They all have bits & pieces of artwork on there that form a random, and yet meaningful, image from that season. Sometimes it's a theme; sometimes it's a side note. But it's really cool & it shows how much thought & care they put into the packaging. All the plastic discs that house the BluRays are held together by three small magnets on the edges...you know, I'm just going to have to upload a few pictures later. It's very, very well done.Especially with "special edition", "collector's edition" complete series sets, the quality tends to be....lackluster. For example, look at Dexter. The wooden box set is the higher rated of the two, but people constantly comment that it looks & feels "cheap", that when it arrived discs were all scattered around & out of order. And don't even get me started on the mannequin bust; that one was rated even worse, and with good reason. But as poorly as those are constructed, this one stands out in stark contrast. Whoever designed this appealing, functional, and solid packaging deserves a big, fat raise.If I must post criticisms, I'll post two: One, I could see the plastic hinges on the side opening of the barrel as a potential weak point. However, they did the best with the medium they were working with, and if I remember correctly the barrel was all nice & taped shut for shipping. It was packed so very well. Just keep it away from kids, who will inevitably destroy it. Two, those anti-piracy ads....seriously. I paid $119 to have advertised to my face, (every time you boot it up & go into a new episode) "This material is copyright protected by feduhral lawz, sooper seerious. Big, big fines, and we'll put you in JAIL. Don't steal this or we'll punish you." I don't care about your protection laws, and neither do thieves. They edit that cute little warning out when they steal. The only people being punished are paying customers who have their time wasted looking at warnings that don't apply to them! Knock. It. Off.Again, no spoilers, but the ending was prodigal. It very tastefully brought the series to an end, in a way that I'm sure satisfied most Breaking Bad fans. It's so wonderful to see such a talented crew treat their work with respect, end it with dignity, and exit the stage before they are asked, begged, to leave. The alternate ending, while funny, would have been a copout & I'm glad it was just that. An alternate.In summary, great series, very well done in both production & packing, no real complaints besides nitpicking...pictures of the barrel & its contents to come later. Seriously. With so many Breaking Bad fanatics I am shocked no one has done it sooner.

Breaking Bad was the iconic series about a high-school chemistry teacher named Walter White (played wonderfully by Bryan Cranston) who finds out he has terminal cancer and decides to start manufacturing meth with a former student named Jesse Pinkman (played by Aaron Paul) so he can make enough money to set up his family for life. Throughout the course of the series, Walter transforms from a guy who is in over his head to a horrible character with almost no redeeming qualities who uses everyone around him. The series also stars Anna Gunn as Walter's wife, Skyler, Dean Norris as Walter's brother-in-law Hank, who is also a DEA agent who ends up looking for the mysterious new meth dealer, Betsy Brandt, as Walter's sister-in-law Marie, RJ Mitte as Walter Jr. Giancarlo Esposito as Gustavo "Gus" Fring, a local drug kingpin with a cover as a business owner, Bob Odenkirk as the criminal lawyer, Saul Goodman, and Jonathan Banks as Mike Ehrmantraut, an enforcer for Gus and private investigator for Saul. The last three also appear on the great spin-off series Better Call Saul.Where the set really shines is with the extras. There are hours of extras for each season including behind-the-scenes featurettes, commentary tracks on select episodes, episodes of "Inside Breaking Bad" the post-show wrap-up that aired after many of the episodes, music videos, gag reels, photo albums, deleted and extended scenes, character profiles, a hilarious alternate ending to the series, and more. So, if you love the show and you love watching the bonus material, there is a ton here for you.The series is widely regarded as one of the best shows of the 2010s. It was wonderfully written and very well acted, by everyone in the main cast and the guest cast. Cranston did a great job of transitioning Walter from a wimp to a monster over the course of the series, and Aaron Paul did a wonderful job playing Jessee as a guy who got in too deep with Walter and portraying Jesse's love-hate feelings toward Walter whom he saw as a father figure, yet knew only cared about himself and money. The series really boils down to the power of greed, and how it corrupts. Even though it has been off the air for nearly a decade, the show holds up very well and is definitely worth the investment. It had a lot fewer shows than many shows that stay on the air for five seasons get (just 62 total episodes), but it told a great story and if you are a fan of crime dramas, it is a must-watch.