Prestige television has a knack for being extremely detail-oriented. Especially in today’s easter egg-oriented media culture, it becomes extremely important to see which detail is placed where by the creators of the show. However, when such sprawling stories as Breaking Bad are crafted, it is often the case that the time between productions of seasons is not congruent with the time that has passed inside the narrative of the show.
This issue came to a head in Breaking Bad when a writer approached Vince Gilligan, to talk about a particular issue that he recognized in the continuity of the show. This mistake was admitted to by Vince Gilligan, which doesn’t really affect the continuity of the show, but really does throw where it sits on the timeline for a little loop.
One key detail in Season 1 might have given way to a plothole in Breaking Bad Season 5
Vince Gilligan, in a conversation with Slate, talked about how there are some mistakes that slip through the cracks, and when they are caught, the creator has an extreme dislike for them. However, there is little that the the creator of the show can do, so he really doesn’t let it play. He said:
I was talking a few minutes ago to a writer who was asking me about inconsistencies of when the show is set in time. When I was shooting the pilot episode, we had a scene where Walt puts his son’s handicap placard on his car, and it said 2007.
The writer said to me: “I thought this show took place in 2007, and it’s only been a year since then, but last week you had someone mention the Osama Bin Laden assassination. How do you reconcile that?” I had to say, “Well, honestly, I don’t.” In a perfect world, this show is somewhat timeless, and people will watch it and think of it as the present.
The mention of Osama Bin Landen’s assassination, while part of the internal timeline of the show, is still lagging, thanks to the disability placard in the pilot. While mistakes like these are rare, and Gilligan has mentioned that the production team goes through revisions and breakdowns to avoid it, some still manage to slip through the cracks.
Vince Gilligan considers the hardest part of the story to be breaking the story
Vince Gilligan, being a gifted writer, talked about what the hardest part about writing a story like Breaking Bad is. Simply beyond penning the plot, a lot goes into making the story reach it’s final, presentable form. He said:
he hardest part of the job of writing this show is when the six writers and myself sit around the room and break the story. We figure out the story, moment by moment, plot beat by plot beat, and it is such a detailed process that it takes quite a bit of time. It takes longer, man-hour-wise, to do that than to actually write the script once the plot is broken.
There aren’t that many glaring errors in Breaking Bad, but as Gilligan said, there are some that slip through the gaps, despite the rigorous process that the writing team goes through while penning the script, even if it is broken down to major and minor plot beats. However, these issues really do not effect the enjoyment of the show, as unless some eagle eyed fans have been on the look out for error, they might not really find issue.
Breaking Bad can be streamed on Netflix
