Postmodern TV: Breaking Bad (SPOILERS)

Television has been mutating and changing ever since the devise known as the TV has came out. Even before the act of telling stories through media had been put through different types of media such as radios, before that books, and before that paintings. As everything does, televison changes through time, TV is where it is now because of the stages it has passed through that we have become board of. Many shows are now to the point of postmodernism, where the whole idea of a TV show is changed, you see things from the point of the bad guy, there aren’t always happy endings and the audience isn’t sure even if they like the main character.

In my opinion Breaking Bad is one of the most post-modern TV shows ever aired. Walter White is a man from a normal world who comes into the series as a normal passive guy, (SPOILERS) throughout the series Walt evolves into his more and more evil character leading to his downfall.Walter is a perfect model of postmodernism because of the drastic character development he experiences throughout the series. He starts as this hardworking man, with a loving family and an urge for something more, he is diagnosed with cancer then joins the drug business to fund his treatment with an old burnout student of his.

Though Walt means well he makes enough to pay for his treatment and more, but he gets greedy. Though the greedy one is brought to his end in the story, the show is postmodern because the greedy one starts as the protagonist and turns into the antagonist throughout the story. Walter plays both the good and bad guy making him change from one set role to another and leaves the viewers with a postmodern view on him, not exactly knowing if they should like Walt or hate him.