Breaking Bad is a highly successful and compelling drama series on the cable network AMC. For the uninitiated, Walt White (Bryan Cranston) is a 50-year-old high school chemistry teacher in Albuquerque, New Mexico who is married to Skyler (Anna Gunn). When the series began Skyler was in the midst of a middle-age pregnancy. They have a teenage son, Walter Jr. (RJ Mitte), who has cerebral palsy. The family’s finances were strained and Walter was trying to make ends meet by moonlighting at a car wash. Then came a crushing blow - Walter was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer and was told that he had perhaps two years to live.
Breaking Bad: The Complete Fourth Season
Studio: Sony
Year: 2011
Rated: Not Rated
Program Length: 610 minutes
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 1080p
Languages: English 5.1 DTS-HD MA
Subtitles: English, English SDH, French, Spanish
The Program
Breaking Bad is a highly successful and compelling drama series on the cable network AMC. For the uninitiated, Walt White (Bryan Cranston) is a 50-year-old high school chemistry teacher in Albuquerque, New Mexico who is married to Skyler (Anna Gunn). When the series began Skyler was in the midst of a middle-age pregnancy. They have a teenage son, Walter Jr. (RJ Mitte), who has cerebral palsy. The family’s finances were strained and Walter was trying to make ends meet by moonlighting at a car wash. Then came a crushing blow - Walter was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer and was told that he had perhaps two years to live.
After receiving his bad news, Walt had an occasion to talk to his brother-in-law, Hank, an officer with the Drug Enforcement Agency. While watching a news story about a drug bust, Hank began to talk about how much money is involved in drug dealing. "It's easy money," he said, "until we catch you." Walt then took Hank up on an offer to do a ride-along for a raid on a drug house where crystal meth was being made. As the DEA agents forced their way into the house, Walt observed someone climb out of a second-story window and run away. It was Jesse Pinkham (Aaron Paul), one of Walter's students. Instead of telling his brother-in-law about Jesse, Walter decided to approach Jesse himself and make a proposition which his student could not refuse. Walt demanded that Jesse take him on as his partner. Walt would use his expertise as a chemist to cook the crystal meth and Jesse would use his connections to distribute the stuff. Walt naively figured that the easy profits would enable him to leave his family in sound financial shape.
Naturally, numerous complications arise. Walt cooks up high-grade crystal meth, a product which is of such quality that he and Jesse take business away from the drug cartel which has been supplying the area. As Season Four begins, Walt's cancer is in remission but he is estranged from Skyler. Hank, his brother-in-law, is relentlessly pursuing him, and his relationship with Jesse is threatening to blow up because of his partner's increasingly erratic behavior. To make matters worse, Walt has to deal with a vicious drug lord, Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito).
Bryan Cranston has garnered well-deserved praise for his performance in the lead role, and he won the 2010 Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. His co-star, Aaron Paul, took home the Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series. The rest of the supporting cast is excellent, with Bob Odenkirk particularly noteworthy as a smarmy lawyer, Saul Goodman. The series also has been nominated for Emmy Awards in several other categories, including Outstanding Cinematography for a One-Hour Series.
Season Four consists of 13 hour-long episodes spread over three discs:
1. Box Cutter
2. Thirty-Eight Snub
3. Open House
4. Bullet Points
5. Shotgun
6. Cornered
7. Problem Dog
8. Hermanos
9. Bug
10. Salud
11. Crawl Space
12. End Times
13. Face Off
The final episode of Season Four builds to a shattering climax and will leave viewers anxiously waiting for more. Fortunately, Season Five is scheduled to debut on July 15 on AMC. Breaking Bad continues to be a fresh, original and exciting series which is not rated and is not suitable for young children.
The Video
The 1.78:1 1080p transfer is outstanding in every respect and does full justice to the spectacular location filming. The images are consistently sharp, with solid and accurate colors, excellent contrast and inky black levels. All four seasons of Breaking Bad have looked simply gorgeous on Blu-ray.
The Audio
The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 audio is every bit as good as the video. Dialogue is mostly confined to the center channel and every word is clear and intelligible. The surround channels come alive during the action scenes and at times the audio is quite explosive. The evocative music is given a wide and pleasing soundstage. NOTE: There are several extended scenes during Season Four in which the characters have conversations in Spanish. Inexplicably, English subtitles do not automatically appear during these scenes. Viewers who do not understand Spanish have to manually engage the English subtitles in order to understand what is being said. This is a significant flaw and it remains to be seen if this situation will be remedied by Sony. UPDATE: HTF member TravisR has found a workaround to the subtitles problem. After the disc finishes loading and the main menu appears, click on Subtitles and engage the English subtitles. Then turn the English subtitles off (it is not necessary to leave the subtitles menu and come back - just engage the subtitles and you can immediately turn them off). Then play the disc and the English subtitles will appear whenever the dialogue is in Spanish. It is not necessary to do this for each episode. I tried the fix and then watched the Spanish-language scene in of Episode 7, "Problem Dog," and it worked flawlessly. Then I played episode 8, "Hermanos," jumped ahead to the Spanish scene and the English subtitles engaged automatically.
The Supplements
The Blu-ray of Season Four is packed with extras.
All thirteen episodes have commentary tracks by members of the cast and crew, including Bryan Cranston, Aaron Paul, Anna Gunn, and others.
Also included are nine featurettes which examine such topics as the show's sets and the "science" of making a hit series. Of special interest is the featurette entitled "Face Off," which is an inside look at the season's incredible finale.
Other extras include extended and deleted scenes, five uncensored episodes, a gag reel, and an extended version of the season finale. The "Better Call Saul" television commercials are always amusing, and there also is a karaoke video. 21 installments of "Inside Breaking Bad" take a look at how the show's episodes are made, and there is a Blu-ray exclusive consisting of 13 video podcasts.
The Packaging
The three discs are securely packaged in a flipper Blu-ray keep case. Also included is an episode guide which gives a thumbnail description of each episode.
The Final Analysis
I became addicted to Breaking Bad when I watched the very first episode, and it continues to be a riveting show. Interested viewers who have not seen the show are strongly urged to go back to Season One and watch it from the beginning
Equipment used for this review:
Panasonic DMP-BD50 Blu-ray player
Panasonic Viera TC-P46G15 Plasma display, calibrated to THX specification by Gregg Loewen
Yamaha HTR-5890 THX Surround Receiver
BIC Acoustech speakers
Interconnects: Monster Cable
Release Date: June 5, 2012
