It was announced yesterday that the Breaking Bad spin-off Better Call Saul was renewed for a second season! Before the first season was even done filming. This is pretty much unheard of. It’s not uncommon for a show to be renewed before the series premieres, but for it to not even be done filming or even fully casting the project is unheard of. The first season is going to consist of 10 episodes and is going to premiere in early 2015. The newly commissioned second season will consist of 13 episodes.
The reason I found it necessary to do a reaction shot to this is because there has to be a high amount of confidence in the project if (a) AMC doesn’t need to see the entire final product and (b) they don’t need to see the viewer’s response. Even Vince Gilligan has expressed a fear that the audience will not take to the show. However, I had the thought that maybe that’s because he’s nervous that he’s not going to have the opportunity to give this series a proper run-through if the audiences don’t catch on and AMC has the cancel the series. I’m seeing this early renewal as a confidence in Vince Gilligan rather than in Better Call Saul itself.
However, I still have a lot of trepidation about the project. Anyone who has watched Breaking Bad knows that Saul Goodman was the only character to give a spin-off. I’m not about to sit down to watch Jesse Pinkman takes Alaska… actually that sounds amazing. Anyway, I think the concept of making it a dramedy that skews more comedy and what looks to me like a more procedural type aspect to the show is smart, but it’s not going to have the magic of Breaking Bad. As beautifully show, smartly plotted, and wonderfully acted Breaking Bad was, so much of its success was perched on Bryan Cranston’s shoulders and Walter White’s metamorphosis. He is one of the greatest, if not the greatest, characters of the history of television.
My issue with Better Call Saul is that even if this is a show depicting Saul’s rise to become Albuquerque’s best CRIMINAL lawyer, the end product is not nearly as compelling as the Heisenberg character. I think that this show is going to make for some fantastic singular episodes, but the series as a whole isn’t going to live up to the careful story that Breaking Bad was. This second season renewal eased my mind a bit on the subject. If AMC is willing to invest the time to tell a complete story, as I have a feeling is their motive, then there must be something up Gilligan’s sleeve.
Hey, I'm Karl, founder and film critic at Smash Cut. I started Smash Cut in 2014 to share my love of movies and give a perspective I haven't yet seen represented. I'm also an editor at The New York Times, a Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic, and a member of the Online Film Critics Society.