Breaking Bad tells the story of Walter White: a High School Chemistry Teacher who discovers he has lung cancer and decides to start cooking crystal meth to provide for his family. He partners up with Jesse Pinkman, an old student of his, who he blackmails by threatening to turn him over to his DEA agent brother in law Hank Schrader. Due to Walt's continuing greed and lack of knowledge regarding the business the two very quickly find themselves in over their heads.
The story is fantastic, sometimes moving a mile a minute, whilst at other times slowly paced and played out for maximum effect. However this series in principally one to set up the characters and allow the audience to develop a connection with them and due the writer's strike is only 7 episodes long, that said they are 7 very good episodes, my personal favourite being episode 3 "... and the bag's in the river" wherein Walt has to decide whether or not to kill a man in cold blood, setting the ground for much of the show's moral dilemmas and also the 'actions have consequences' philosophy of the writing.
Walt (Bryan Cranston): Walt starts out as the most boring and plain man in existence, he moves through life without ever really living it, he contributed to a Nobel Prize winning paper, but teaches chemistry at high school to kids who aren't interested. He makes a monumental decision to break bad and it begins to effect him, he becomes more confident and makes a lot of bad decisions culminating in the creation of his Heisenberg persona.
Jesse (Aaron Paul): Jesse was perfectly happy with things the way they were before Walt showed up, he made enough money and avoided the police and DEA. Suddenly he's being forced to do things he doesn't want to, and he suffers for it, especially in the end when they try to do business with the psychotic Tuco. Also we see his relationship with his family, mainly his parents who hate what their son has become and don't trust him to even be alone with his brother, it was no doubt this difficult home life that led him down the road he is on when the series starts.
Skyler (Anna Gunn): Skyler is Walt's pregnant wife, throughout this series she is largely just there as Walt's motivation, their are clear glimpses of a strong character there, but for this series she does not quite reach the potential she reaches in later series.
Hank (Dean Norris): Hank can be summed up in one word during series one: douche. He is there as pure comic relief and in this series is quite an annoying character.
Walter Jr. (R.J. Mitte): Walter Jr. is Walt and Skylar's son with Cerebral Paulsy, much like Skyler he is mostly there as motivation for Walt, however he does get some decent emotional moments.
Marie (Betsy Brandt): Marie is Skyler's sister and Hank's wife, she is also largely comic relief.
In short, Breaking Bad is a highly competent start to the best show on TV, and though finding its feet and style, it is a must watch so that the rest of the brilliance can be truly appreciated.
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