I've seen the first three episodes of this smart, scathing and darkly funny drama, and it's as good as anything on HBO or FX (certainly, it's far superior to HBO's botched summer series "John From Cincinnati"). Bryan Cranston (papa Hal on "Malcolm in the Middle") is a former scientist who now leads a fairly demeaning life in Albuquerque, N.M. He holds two jobs -- as a chemistry teacher and as a worker in a car wash. He has a loving, pregnant wife (Anna Gunn -- Mrs. Bullock on "Deadwood") and a teen son with cerebral palsy (RJ Mitte). His family loves him, but Walter's professional life is humiliating. The same kids who ignore his chemistry lectures sometimes end up at the car wash, laughing as Walter buffs their tires.
On top of this, Walter learns he has terminal cancer. With that, he snaps. Through his DEA agent brother-in-law, Walter learns that his former student, Jesse (Aaron Paul) is a crystal meth dealer known as Cap'n Cook. Walter tracks him down and they team up.
This sends the duo on a strange path. How strange? Well, the pilot episode opens with Walter, clad only in a gas mask and some tightie-whities, piloting an RV with two half-dead gangsters in the back.
As we learn who the gangsters are and how Walter ended up half nude in a Winnebago, the show takes on elements of the films of Quentin Tarantino and the Coen brothers. Yet "Breaking Bad" shows more humanity than the works of either of those auteurs. Yes, bloody, nasty things happen, and there's a lot of deadpan humor, but Walt never takes his decisions lightly. Watch the way that, in the show's later episodes, he labors over whether to kill a man who is clearly a threat to him. There's real anguish in his decision, due mainly to creator Vince Gilligan's nimble characterizations and Cranston's subtle work as Walter.
Cranston has always been good and his harried, manic Hal was one of the best things about "Malcolm." But here, he's totally different. His Walter is all quiet desperation. Notice the look on his face as he tells his students that chemistry is "the study of change." He's genuinely excited by his subject. Then, he notices that nearly no one is listening and he's quietly crestfallen. The show's first three episodes are full of moments like that, when volumes are said through a flicker in Cranston's eyes. With any luck, the role will do for him what "Mad Men's" Don Draper did for Jon Hamm or what Tony Soprano did for James Gandolfini.
The rest of the cast is equally good, with Gunn adding sass and sex appeal to the role of Walt's wife, and Mitte bringing a sarcastic glint to his role as Walt's son.
And the writing has a number of nice touches -- the way Jesse still calls his former teacher "Mr. White;" the fixation Walt has with a mustard stain on the shirt of the doctor delivering his fateful diagnosis; the way Walt disrobes before cooking meth because he doesn't want to ruin his good clothes.
It's all fascinating and touching and smartly observed. And it's all part of AMC's evolution into one of the real powerhouses of TV drama.