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'Malcolm' Dad In The Middle Of 'Breaking Bad'

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: January 17, 2008

The old Southern term "breaking bad" means to behave in a violent, wanton or outrageous manner for no discernible reason.

Walter White, the mild-mannered high school chemistry teacher in AMC's stunning new "Breaking Bad" drama series, has several reasons for his sudden skid to the dark side.

Broke, stuck in a thankless job and faced with a bleak future, Walter ("Malcolm in the Middle" star Bryan Cranston) spins out of control into the midlife crisis from hell.

Debuting Sunday at 10 p.m., "Breaking Bad" is about a man who starts a new life just as his life is ending.

Coming on the heels of AMC's brilliant "Mad Men," the nine-episode comedy-drama is unpredictable, funny, shocking, compelling and disturbing.

Cranston, 51, gained 15 pounds and grew a mustache to transform himself into a forlorn character who has wasted a brilliant mind on teaching apathetic teens.

Living from paycheck to paycheck, he moonlights at a car wash to cover the mortgage on a drab Albuquerque, N.M., home. He helps his loving stay-at-home wife, Skyler (Anna Gunn), care for a teenage son (RJ Mitte) with cerebral palsy. Another child is on the way, but Walter has little time to celebrate.

The midlife malaise hits full force when he learns that he has inoperable lung cancer and only a year or two left to live. Desperate to leave something behind besides debt, Walter decides to make a lot of fast cash by using his knowledge of chemistry to produce and sell crystal methamphetamine.

"It's a bad decision because Walter doesn't know how to be a criminal," says Vince Gilligan, a former "X-Files" writer who created the series. "We're going to take him from Walter Mitty to Scarface."

But it won't be an easy journey because things go from bad to worse as Walter goes from the classroom to a roving RV. Wearing a gas mask and stripped down to his whitey briefs, he's headed down a path that will have him dodging bullets, laundering money and disposing of bodies.

It's a wild ride, and Cranston is outstanding as a good man gone bad in a role that is light-years away from the hapless Hal on "Malcolm."

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