Raquel R. Incertis Madrid

Madrid

Updated Thursday, April 4, 2024-22:01

  • Culture Bryan Cranston, the man who survived 'Breaking Bad'

A man in boxers and a gas mask drives a motorhome down a lonely road in the middle of the New Mexico desert. In the passenger seat is another man, also wearing a gas mask, who lies unconscious with his head resting on the dashboard. In front of a video camera, the man identifies himself as

Walter Hartwell White

and leaves a cryptic final message for his wife and his son. When he finishes, Walter puts the camera on the ground, stands half-naked in the middle of the road and raises the gun while the sound of police sirens gets closer.

It has been 15 years since this story

in extreme res

officially arrived on Spanish television through

Paramount Comedy

. On April 7, 2009, the first episode of

Breaking Bad

was broadcast , one year and three months after its debut on the American channel AMC.

Its arrival was late in a time without the variety of platforms to which we have access today

: those who wanted to follow the most rabid news of international fiction had to use desperate measures. "I saw it on pirated websites, first, and then in God knows where. But I had to see it, that's the thing," says Miguel Toledo, a declared

Breaking Bad

fan, laughing

.

This is how the antihero Walter White, also known as Heisenberg

, slipped into our serial imagination

: a chemistry professor converted into a manufacturer and trafficker of methamphetamine after being diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. "It's all for my family," he said at the beginning.

"I am the danger," he would say a few seasons later

, playing the role of a drug lord.

The limited initial penetration of the series starring

Bryan Cranston

and

Aaron Paul

in our country could have been due to the fact that Paramount Comedy was not an appropriate network for the landing of

Breaking Bad

. More than a dramatic comedy,

it was a

neo-noir

drama with some touches of humor

, but without the accelerated pace of a

sitcom

. In reality, it would have been easy for a viewer, in a zap

,

to confuse the legendary pilot with an independent film.

Vince

Gilligan

,

screenwriter

experienced

in

The

​

"There are episodes that use Hitchcock's tools of suspense to emotionally engage viewers"

Asier Gil, researcher and professor of Audiovisual Communication at the Carlos III University

"The series has a very careful staging that knows how to work well with the iconography and helps reinforce the evolution of the characters.

There are numerous details that may go unnoticed on a first viewing, but which invite a

more attentive second viewing, such as the "Easter

eggs

" that the public must find; a very common practice within video games," explains

Asier Gil

, researcher and professor of Audiovisual Communication at the Carlos III University of Madrid. "Also, in a more classic sense, there are episodes that use Hitchcock's tools of suspense to emotionally engage viewers."

For many experts in the audiovisual field,

Breaking Bad

is one of those cult series that no one can miss. It has been included in books such as

100

series to watch before you die

. Others, like Gil, question the validity of the term in this case. "

Breaking Bad

does not fully fit the idea of ​​cult media products for one simple reason: since its inception it enjoyed good acceptance by the public and critics, at least in the US. In general,

it is usually thought that something is cult when at first it does not work well, but a certain minority makes it their own

and gives it a new value, even decades after its release, as has happened with the movie

Showgirls

.

Breaking Bad

has not strictly followed a process of revaluation, but it has that has that effect whereby people have made it their own and it has a very strong and loyal community of fans," he says.

Mugs with the periodic table, prints with the silhouette of Walter White and his

alter ego

,

Los Pollos Hermanos

t-shirts and badges with iconic phrases from Jesse Pinkman. A tourist route through the scenes of the series in which people can throw pizzas to the roof of the White house. Yes,

the fan phenomenon generated around

Breaking Bad

has continued over time

, engaging a new generation of viewers who discovered it during confinement while diving into the Netflix catalog five years after its conclusion. "Today it is still considered a very good series by the Spanish public, despite being a product very anchored in North American culture. Although a critical phenomenon persists that compares it with

The Sopranos

or

The Wire

, works generally considered superior, it has not lost its image of quality," says Toledo. In Spain, Heisenberg seems to be as alive as in his native Albuquerque.

"I wouldn't be able to assess to what extent the Spanish fan community is similar or different from others, but I think that the

Breaking Bad

phenomenon is quite transnational, especially among young men," says Gil. "I am convinced that, if an exhibition similar to the one that took place on

Friends

a few years ago in Madrid was held, it would be very successful. It is one of those series whose fame makes people of all kinds who did not see it at the time become aware of it. that it exists and that you can see it on platforms.

It's almost a classic

."

In 2024, it will be five years since

El Camino

, the Netflix feature film about the life journey of fugitive Jesse Pinkman once freed from the yoke of Walter White. It is also a decade since the premiere of

Metastasis

, the unknown Colombian

remake

of the series that was marketed in Latin American countries with a lower cable television culture. Except for the locations, which replace the New Mexico settings with those of Colombia, the different aspects of the adaptation recreate the work of Vince Gilligan in an almost parodic way: from the name of the characters -Walter Blanco, Cielo Blanco, José Miguel Rosas, Gustavo Cortés- to some memorable scenes.

The Breaking Bad

universe does not end there : in 2015, the

spin-off

Better Call Saul

arrived on Movistar+ and Netflix

, a new Gilligan project focused on the small-time lawyer Saul Goodman. It works as a prequel and sequel to the events narrated in the mother series and, for Toledo, it is even better than

Breaking Bad

. "Gilligan and Gould's technique seems much more polished, and the character of

Jimmy McGill is possibly the most profound and charismatic in the entire universe

. If we add to this an excellent supporting cast, legal plots that can make you blush to those of the cartel in terms of brutality, and rich dynamics between its characters, we have the recipe for a masterpiece," he concludes.