Better Call Saul Is Better Than Breaking Bad
Today I’m looking into both Breaking Bad and its successor Better Call Saul, both created by Vince Gilligan, and comparing a few aspects of the two big hits. Very minor spoilers for both of them.
Breaking Bad was a big enough hit that I couldn’t ignore it. Everyone I knew was talking about it, or wanted to talk about it. I eventually got round to seeing it during the break between the two parts of the fifth season. Like most people I fell in love with the show and blasted my way through it with ease, finishing it in about a month. Although my favourite characters in the show are some like Mike, Jesse, Jane and Fring, Saul Goodman was still a character I enjoyed. However, I never expected that a show detailing Saul’s rise, initially with the name Jimmy McGill, would interested me that much. To my surprise, it hugely surpassed my expectations not only in its character development and storyline direction but also the cinematography, sound design and editing. All these aspects were great in Breaking Bad, but Better Call Saul gives me the impression that Vince Gilligan looked over the entirety of Breaking Bad and thoroughly analysed every one of those aspects to death until you get the quality that is shown in these current seasons of Better Call Saul. I’ll go through some of these aspects and compare them in both shows, trying to show why I think Better Call Saul is currently (and hopefully always) a better show.
So first of all I’ll go in a similar order to my reviews and start off with story. Breaking Bad’s overarching plot line is simple yet a lot less believable than Better Call Saul’s. While Breaking Bad has the protagonist dying of cancer cooking meth to create a nest egg for his family when he’s gone, Better Call Saul is focused on the protagonist getting deeper and deeper into crime while trying to be a successful lawyer. Now, these have similar aspects to each other. Both main characters are trying not to get themselves more involved in the local crime gangs while slowly starting to enjoy the taste for it and delving deeper into it. One big difference that I prefer in Better Call Saul is that although we start off in events prior to Breaking Bad, McGill already has had a past of scamming and other crime. I feel it makes the storylines more impactful as we see McGill trying not to fall down that path again. We already see some of the ways he has already changed his life for the worse with the past he has lived, so it makes what might happen to him even more real to both the character and the audience. What I also prefer in Better Call Saul is that the storylines including the characters family members are, on average, a lot more believable and feel incredibly real. Breaking Bad’s joke of a marriage between Walter and Skyler is laughable while the relationship between McGill and Kim Wexler has a lot more realistic issues and conflicts, not to mention that the characters actually have chemistry. I do love all of Breaking Bad’s seasons, though they clearly fall into three sections with season one and two in the first section, three and four in the second and both parts of five in the last. At first glance this looks neat, but actually looking into the pacing and layout (not to mention episode length) of each of these sections, the quality of flow in Breaking Bad isn’t too good. On the other hand, Better Call Saul has managed to consistently have each of the first three seasons paced fantastically. Each one starts up and opens enough questions to keep you going while ending the season with tied up most of them up and ending on a cliffhanger that is neither cheesy nor unimportant. It is this flow that tips Better Call Saul over the edge for a better story.
Obviously when it comes to characters there’s going to be an amount of overlap. So far, up until the end of season three, any characters appearing in both shows have been at least good if not great, though most of them are currently only brief cameos. McGill is not quite his ‘usual’ self compared to Saul Goodman in Breaking Bad. He still has the great comedic value, something that Better Call Saul does better, but reveals an even darker side to the audience now he’s come into the limelight. Mike Ehrmantraut was my favourite character in Breaking Bad, and he continues to be going into Better Call Saul. He brings all the great elements to this show as he did to Breaking Bad. Again, because he’s given more of a main role, these elements are emphasised and add more to the show. The only problem I had with Mike in Breaking Bad was the limited amount of time we had to see the character develop and grow, but know we get more context for his past that was vague before this show and we get more time to allow the character to expand. What’s also great about this show is the comment that Better Call Saul will take place before, during and after Breaking Bad. This gives the opportunity for characters from Breaking Bad come in and develop further. Without trying to downplay Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul is raising the level of the world and its characters to an extra level because of how the show is envisioned. Then we get into the new characters exclusive to Better Call Saul. Rhea Seehorn gives a fantastic performance as Kim Wexler. Most of the female characters in Breaking Bad are either dreadful, mediocre or barely have any screen time, but Kim is one of the first ones that actually make a big, meaningful impact, the only other one being Jane in season two of Breaking Bad. Kim not only acts as a window for the audience to experience McGill’s hole digging, but it also doesn’t limit her like it does to so many other characters. She has her own problems and is developed enough that she does stand out as her own character.
Visually, the show is again extremely similar. The only major difference is the pace. Better Call Saul has this slight extension of moments throughout the seasons where moments last longer and have a larger impact. It’s a weird thing to try to explain but it’s like the show has managed to emphasise plot points and character moments so that they are far more impactful than they would have been if they were made during the production of Breaking Bad. A smaller thing is actually one of the few things in favour of Breaking Bad and that’s their colour palettes. Breaking Bad has a better colour diversity and themes its key scenes more effectively. Better Call Saul still does these things but to a lesser extent. One thing they carried over when talking about colour is the use of yellow colours and a yellow filter when the scene takes place in mexico. It’s a great way to not only help the audience differentiate where they are but it also sets a different tone for the locations.
When it comes to sound, it’s the other area where Breaking Bad edges it out. Now this could be attributed to the fact that there’s only three seasons of Better Call Saul, at the moment, but I’m comparing the two shows where they are currently so that point dies by itself. Breaking Bad takes that win with great comercial track use. The music made for the show isn’t too bad, but it isn’t up to the greats of shows like Game of Thrones. Better Call Saul has some comercial tracks but they are few and far between, and aren’t as impactful as some of the great tracks used in Breaking Bad from Gnarls Barkley to Badfinger. Anything in terms of foley was reasonable, nothing stuck out as awkward or unrealistic, so I guess they did well.
I’m not trying to completely dismiss Breaking Bad. It’s a fantastic show, one that will probably be remember for a while and be some people’s favourite show ever. Instead, I think Better Call Saul takes all of Breaking Bad and improves it massively. And I am incredibly excited for the remaining seasons, however many they end up being.
On that we can agree.
-Boad
Originally published at bodaciousboad.wordpress.com on July 22, 2018.
