Saturday, February 1, 2014

Can't watch Breaking Bad again

I loved Breaking Bad. But I'm finding I can't re-watch the series. Some of it's too painful to see again---there are people you don't want to see die. At least two children were killed in the series not counting the airline disaster.

There was an article listing plot ideas they never used on the show. One was this: Walt, Jr, comes home with a black eye. He's being picked on at school! Walter finds out who the other kid is. He plants drugs in his locker and the kid is arrested. Later, it turns out that Walt, Jr, is the bully, the other kid is the victim.

They decided not to use it because the stakes weren't high enough and they wanted to keep Walt, Jr, innocent.

But there---see----high stakes.

You had The Talented Mr Ripley. The stakes started out rather low. Mr Ripley faces social embarrassment and an obnoxious rich guy dumps him for an even more obnoxious rich guy. It's as if George Costanza resorted to murder then spent the rest of the series doing horrible things to avoid being caught.

There's the key. Make the stakes really high. Either have someone face execution, life in prison or acute embarrassment.

No comments:

Post a Comment