Breaking Bad: The Complete Series [DVD]

This is the complete series of "Breaking Bad" - and I'm reviewing the Blu-ray set. You get a sturdy and deluxe outer-box, within which are the cases for each season of the show. In total, there are 15 discs, on which are 62 episodes. It's well packaged, and manufactured to a high standard. The quality of the Blu-ray discs is superb - with both fantastic picture and sound. Everything is crisp and clear.The show itself concerns the two main characters - Walter White (Bryan Cranston), a gifted chemist who's working as high school teacher, and Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), a former student of his. Walter is diagnosed with lung cancer and, thinking he is going to die in the near future, he approaches Jesse - who operates as a small town drug dealer - with a business proposition: to produce and sell crystallized methamphetamine. And so the two of them turn to a life of organised crime in Albuquerque, New Mexico - making vast sums of cash - while getting involved with the criminal under-world and being pursued by the police.Each season explores the antics that Walter and Jessie get into, as they struggle to avoid getting caught by the authorities or killed by drug lords. And, slowly, Walter shifts from being a kind and caring man into a hardened and unsympathetic bad-ass. While Jessie develops from being an under-achieving 'meth-head' into a decent and responsible adult. These transformations - and the effects they have on the loved one around then - are mesmerising.This drama is a dark comedy - often involving black humour. The show deals with drug overdose, murder, systematic lying to family members, and a descent into chaos. It's an exceptionally well-made series, with a great story. The events of the entire show (aside from the latter half of season 5) all take place within about one year - so it's an eventful period! As a viewer, it's easy to get drawn in and captivated by the characters and plot. As one episode ends, you look forward to the next! Finally, when it did end, I was glad to hear that a spin-off show - featuring one of the best secondary characters of the series - is being made.I didn't watch this on TV when it was originally broadcast. Rather, I bought this box-set and watched the whole thing over a month. It's fantastic - and I thoroughly recommend it.

Cranston plays a chemistry teacher (Walter White) who is diagnosed with lung cancer and given only a few years to live. As he wants to provide for his family, he becomes desparate to leave enough money for them once he's gone. It just so happens that his brother-in-law (Norris) is a DEA agent who takes him on a ddrive-by of a meth lab. There he recognises a former student (Paul) who is clearly involved in cooking meth. Later, he tracks the latter down and proposes they go into that same business together as with his science background, he knows he can produce a much purer and better product to market.The first series gets you hooked from the start as though it's as addictive as the meth they end up cooking. Great performances from the lead characters, including Gunn (his wife) and Brandt (Norris' wife) and the minor characters make this a totally compelling series from beginning to end. Also, it shows the degradation of Cranston’s character as he becomes more and more involved in the drug trade and gangs, so that even murder is considered a necessary option. Some episodes drag a bit on the negative front, but so many are standout brilliance such as one involving a tortoise (which I can’t recall the title) and others like ‘face-off’ etc… Highly recommended.

Breaking Bad, what more can i say, great series, for me the best series ever made. Just one warning though, when you first load the disc in your player, it might take a while for it to load and start playing. At first , i even thought the discs were faulty because it took so long before anything showed on the screen, i mean literally about 5 to 8 minutes without exagerating! But do not worry however, because this is not unusual on certain types of players, just wait it out, and you'll see after some time when it's fully loaded that the discs just play perfectly without interruptions. Just be warned that this might happen. I think this is something important that should be mentioned somewhere on the description of the box or something, because at first i was at the verge of returning them, before i noticed the discs just take quite some time to fully load on the beginning. Just so you know....

A very nice Box set indeed, no plastic. Nice prints of the shows characters throughout the two folding disc books, each disc slots into the cardboard pages with two discs per page and episode descriptions printed behind each disc. All printed images are high quality with a high gloss finish. The outer box is very clean with nothing other than the shows name, no DVD technical details like region code or play time. Im quit happy with this Box set

I'm one of the ones who never saw it when it was on TV. Wanting to see it, I had considered buying the DVD box set for £50, but I thought that was a bit steep for DVDs. Similarly the £70 Blu-ray box set was just too pricey. But when Amazon offered the Blu-ray box set at the DVD price of £50, well that swung it for me. And I'm glad it did. The show had me hooked from start to finish - I watched the whole lot in just 12 days! It looks great in HD played at 24P (I believe it was mostly shot on 35mm film at 24 frames per second), it's well worth getting it on Blu-ray for that alone. I think a 50Hz DVD experience would diminish the viewing pleasure.