Sportscenter and Breaking Bad.

I sort of feel brain dead right now. It was a long weekend. Maybe it was because my lady was out of town and I proceeded to eat frozen pizza, drink beer, watch TV, and eat more pizza. Maybe it was because I was anticipating the Breaking Bad finale and felt emotionally drained. Maybe it’s because I’ve been staring at a computer screen all day and my emotions were poltergeisted from me and sucked into my laptop. Or, maybe it’s all of the above. It’s all of the above.

Somewhere in the fog and pizza I managed to come to two very important conclusions this weekend that (I think) have an impact on any human who likes either sports or watching narrative programs. I’m banking on one of these two things appealing to you.

Conclusion 1: I was really trying to avoid being the guy who talks about Breaking Bad. I’m not going to get into how great Breaking Bad is, we already know that, the finale was great. The show was great, it’s storytelling at its finest.  What I am going to get into is how great Breaking Bad was at marketing to its fans. I kind of think it may have been a game changer.

Breaking Bad knew exactly what it was as a show and fed into it. It knew that we as fans loved Heisenberg saying, “Say My Name” or “Tread Lightly” and Pinkman saying, “Bitch.” It was so aware of what it was doing that it didn’t over think itself. But rather, it fed itself, and in turn, fed us. It created hashtags that weren’t generic, and created novelty items (meth lab Lego set).

I don’t think there’s ever been a show of this caliber that played to its strengths in regard to communicating with fans. There was no forcing the Breaking Bad slogans, they saw what was trending and moved with it… Which is a great lesson for just about everything in the entire world.

 

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Conclusion 2: Sportscenter is never not on.

What. The. Fuck. Seriously, Sportscenter is always on. I have Time Warner which has 3 ESPN channels – ESPN, ESPN2, and some 3rd ESPN station that I literally have no clue about… ESPNews maybe?

I was staring at my cable guide and noticed that as one Sportscenter would end on ESPN it begin on ESPN2 then end and then begin on the 3rd station - and continue, over and over and over and over. The weird part is, is that these were all different Sportcenters talking about the same thing, sort of, but with different people. Then when a certain time came, ESPN just looped the original Sportcenter!

In my slumped over fat guy weekend mode I searched forward to find out if this was just a weekend thing, it isn’t! ESPN legitimately loops Sportscenter.  This is horrible. I love Sportscenter as much as anyone but this is not right. The main reason being is because Sportscenter now releases so much content they’re talking about non-stories and bullshit that shouldn’t warrant a conversation. I don’t give a flying fuck what LeBron said on Twitter or the Instagram of him and his wife, I don’t need you to tell me, that’s why I have Twitter and a Instagram account.

Sportscenter talked about Dwayne Wade and Kevin Durant’s minor words back and forth like they had a KG / Carmelo exchange.  The ironic part is, having this oversaturation of Sportscenter being there 24.5 hours a day makes me tune out and allows me to appreciate the Internet’s a la carte style along with good writing from sites like Grantland.

Eh, bitter old man talking. Whatever, Breaking Bad was great. I’m off to read about sports. 

Breaking Bad: The Prison Scene

There’s no doubt that I’m not going to be the first person to say how amazing Sunday’s episode of Breaking Bad was. I actually told myself I wasn’t going to write anything about it because it’s one of those “no shit, it was cool, what do you have to say about it" moments. But I had to write something and I wanted to take a moment and appreciate the coolest two minutes that television (probably) has ever handed me: The Prison Scene.

Thing is, I don’t know if this scene even needs a set up. If you watch the show the set up was slowly burning for seven previous episodes. If you don’t watch the show you can just marvel at the awesomeness of what’s happening. I cannot stress enough how amazing this show is and I wish everyone would watch it so I could talk to you and discuss anything and everything.

I give you, The Prison Scene. The Scene where Walter White teams up with skinhead assholes to take out ten guys in two minutes, all in dramatic fashion:

Hope this videos isn’t taken down…

UPDATE: 9-6 The video was taken down, which isn’t surprising. The prison scene video had a good life here on the site. Just go watch Breaking Bad!

Breaking Bad Coins A Term.

 

 

Time has passed and I can finally make sense of what happened on Breaking Bad this past Sunday. I’m not going to go into show reflection mode because we live in social media world and talking about something that happened on Sunday is basically like reflecting on the early 2000’s. What I’m going to talk about is the term that Breaking Bad may have inadvertently created, and when I say inadvertently I mean that I’m actually making a term up right now… but only because of Breaking Bad.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

So, the crazy twenty-minute train robbery that only Breaking Bad could have pulled off wasn’t the craziest thing that took place, anyone who was watching had the jaw drop moment right after Walt, Jessie, and homie from Friday Night Lights stole the meth. The kid from Friday Night Lights proceeded to shoot the lone witness to the train robbery… A kid.

Yes, a kid.

Breaking Bad took the next step on Sunday. They crossed the threshold and there is really no turning back at this point. To be honest, I didn’t even think it was possible, but it happened. In the world of bad guys I think there is one “thing” you can do to really validate how fucked up you are and how fucked up the repercussions will be. Breaking Bad went there, they shot a child.

For the record, this wasn’t a kid doing anything wrong; it was just an unassuming kid out on an unassuming dirt bike ride. The craziest part about this is that the child was shot not by, but because of, our main character – Walter White. Wasn’t Walter our “hero” at some point? How the shit did they just turn this around so much? How and why are we rooting for Walter still?

Back to the new term!

Happy Days brought us “Jump The Shark” (When a show has gone to far)

Indiana Jones 4 brought us “Nuke The Fridge” (When a movie has just gone to far)

And now:

Breaking Bad has bought us “Shoot The Kid” (When a show decided to cross the “holy shit what the fuck else could happen” line.

For the record, at least Breaking Bad has created a term that doesn’t mean you completely screwed up, but rather, that the characters are completely screwed.

Remember at the end of the movie Seven when Kevin Spacey was talking to Brad Pitt in his creepy voice saying “What I’m doing will be studied for years.” That’s how I feel about Breaking Bad. This show and the turns will be studied for years with people debating how and why certain things happened – and I’m okay with that.

If Breaking Bad somehow coins another term that is as heavy as “shoot the kid” my head may explode – and I’m also okay with that.