Karl Pilkington on Science Channel's 'An Idiot Abroad': Idiot, Yes, But Savant, Too

March 12, 2011 10:15 AM

By Mark Bianculli

Saturday's Science Channel marathon showing of An Idiot Abroad (2:30-11 p.m. ET) gives viewers the chance to catch up on episodes they missed, or to be introduced, in one massive dose, to a TV travel host with a unique difference. He hates to travel...

Until viewing the new travel documentary series An Idiot Abroad, by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, I had never noticed a now-obvious niche left completely unexploited by the current travel show format.

Here I had thought they'd done it all, exhausted every character, and delivered something for every type of fan.

We've got Anthony Bourdain, the slick, bad boy foodie author who dines with sultans and street vendors alike.

And Andrew Zimmern, the hefty, gregarious bald man with no gag reflex, who crosses continents to savor a tasty bull testicle ceviche.

And let us not forget PBS's Rick Steves, whose straight-laced, uber-geeky approach is somehow strangely comforting and addicting. But as varied and unique as these hosts are, they all share one fatal flaw: they love to travel.

Enter Karl Pilkington, a "typical Little Englander" with a high school education. And also with, as Gervais describes him, "a head like a f#@king orange." Earning fame on both the record-breaking podcast and animated HBO version of The Ricky Gervais Show (9 p.m. ET Fridays), Pilkington has made a career out of seeing the world a bit differently.

Now, as the host of the brilliant series An Idiot Abroad -- repeated in full today by the Science Channel, followed at 10 p.m. by a finale in which Gervais and Merchant question Pilkington upon his return -- Pilkington gives us the chance to see it a bit differently as well.

In what Gervais himself calls "the most expensive practical joke I've ever done," Idiot sends Pilkington to six of the seven wonders of the world -- The Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal, the Great Pyramids of Egypt, the Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza, the ancient city of Petra, and Machu Picchu in Peru -- to tear him far from his comfort zone and watch him squirm and winge in his worldly new surroundings. And of course, hopefully to learn a thing or two along the way.

Now some -- including Gervais, who loves him like a brother -- would classify Pilkington as a moron. A mank. A buffoon. An idiot. And in some ways, perhaps they're right. But to simply label him an "idiot" is to leave out the "savant."

Karl questions the world with a childlike lack of preconception, often stumbling upon brilliant new ideas, or dismantling popular and accepted ones. And it's during the dismantling where his tries genius lies.

Melding a near-complete lack of knowledge with a complete lack of veneration, Pilkington skeptically criticizes everything, which almost always leaves him over-bothered and under-impressed. This, however, is precisely the quality that makes him the perfect host for a different type of travel show.

Gone are the poetic descriptions of a city's architecture and landscape. Absent is the blind adoration of foreign culture. Distant places are removed from their pedestals and, most refreshingly, evaluated with brutal honesty.

The traffic and merchants in India are almost unbearable. The buckets of entrails and skinned frogs in China are revolting. The street festivals in Mexico are arbitrary and reckless. Most of the ancient Great Wall is a modern renovation.

Now granted, Gervais and Merchant wouldn't be good producers unless they poked poor Karl with the proverbial stick, so extra efforts are made to make his hotels and meals comically miserable. But he's also treated to some extraordinary opportunities that the common traveler never experiences. And between the two, you get to watch the perfect balance.

Part of you watches him detest his absurd situations, and laughs at him. Part of you relates to the horrors of traveling, and laughs with him. And part of you -- unexpectedly -- realizes how profound and insightful his wit can actually be.

By the end of his six trips, Pilkington can't wait to get back to London. He curses the idea of a second series, and recalls nothing but painful memories. But watching his adventures, we see how much he has actually learned and tasted and experienced, and can't help but sense that he secretly appreciates it. Travel -- even unpleasant travel -- broadens the mind and enriches the soul.

It's like Mark Twain said in his first travel book, The Innocents Abroad: Any rare thing, any new, exhilarating sensation, is worth a hundred worn and threadbare home pleasures.

That's something even an idiot can understand.

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Playing 'Where's Waldo?,' and 'Peace Train,' at Jon Stewart's Rally

November 1, 2010 1:30 PM

By Mark Bianculli

There I stood, tightly packed in a sea of people, watching some musical number or other in the opening hour of the "Rally to Restore Sanity And/or Fear," when suddenly, from behind, a man dressed as Waldo (as in "Where's Waldo?") came crowd-surfing slowly over my head. But that, believe it or not, was not the unusual part...

The unusual part followed about sixty seconds later, when a unison rumbling of the crowd made me turn around once more. "Waldo's cell phone! Waldo's cell phone!" No sooner had I made out what they were saying than a blue cell phone was eagerly placed in my hand by a woman in the crowd.

"Pass it forward!"

I turned to my fiance, Jessica Kozzi, and laughed, amazed by the example of consideration (and cooperation), but then it occurred to me: perhaps I shouldn't be.

I was, after all, at the Rally to Restore Sanity, a vaguely but widely advertised gathering of reasonable and responsible people, lending their time to support the very kind of behavior I had just witnessed. Working together. Caring for other people. And acting... sane. Someone dropped his cell phone. And two thousand sane people slowly handed it back to him.

And yes, other, more important things were happening as well. On stage, for example, amidst all the shenanigans, Yusuf Islam (formerly known as Cat Stevens) took the crowd's collective breath away by singing his quiet ballad "Peace Train" to the very children he sang about a generation before.

It was interrupted by an ultimately funny musical stunt involving Ozzy Osbourne and the O-Jays -- but for that first minute, with the crowd completely transfixed, it was probably the most beautiful and moving moment of the entire event. And no, it was not at all lost on the crowd that this beautiful song of peace was coming from a Muslim.

Other important moments included:

-- Giving a sarcastic award to a seven-year-old girl for being braver than NPR and fellow news organizations who prohibited their employees from attending.

-- Some meaningful musical numbers from The Roots.

-- Some powerful video montages of media fear hype presented by Stephen Colbert, who co-hosted the "...And/Or Fear" portion of the joint rally.

-- And, of course, the moment I flew across the country to witness: Stewart's brief but serious address to the country.

Without having yet seen or read any of it since, I have only my memory of what he said. But what I took away as the most touching moment was the part at the end, when he thanked the crowd for attending.

The whole concept of this rally was the idea that rational people truly do outnumber the crazies and the racists and the arbitrarily angry. And by bringing out a calm, happy crowd estimated at up to a quarter of a million, Stewart and Colbert were able to prove their point.

I'm not extremely political, and have never attended so much as a pep rally before. I wasn't born in the turbulent Sixties, and I didn't grow up with a trusted man in broadcast news, such as Walter Cronkite or Edward Murrow. But I did want to stand up for this one.

And even in this cynical time, I do trust Jon Stewart.

I was proud to stand with the only group I do identify with: calm, rational, hard-working, decently educated, non-confrontational, unprejudiced, open-minded people who, thank goodness, truly do appear to be the majority in this country.

Stewart's gratitude for attendance felt so sincere because, in a rally whose motives were questionable, attendance turned out to be the entire point. Just being there, bringing attention to the fact that most of our country still has a calm head on its shoulders, was our jaded generation's way (and others) of collectively "taking it down a notch." And that was something I was proud to be a part of.

The rally ended, and people walked away with their children and their friends, taking pictures of funny posters and chatting about what brought them there. The mall was left clean. The trains were boarded quietly. And 250,000 people calmly went back to their busy lives.

Amazingly, on the way back to the metro station, I spotted Waldo once more in the crowd across the lawn. I wonder if he ever got his cell phone back.

I bet he did.

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In the 'Tenth Inning' of PBS's 'Baseball,' Ken Burns Pitches Some Fresh History

September 26, 2010 6:30 AM

By Mark Bianculli

Let me begin this article the way I imagine Ken Burns would want me to -- with some context.

In 1993, William Jefferson Clinton was sworn in as the 42nd President of the United States. In the Middle East, PLO leader Yasser Arafat signed a peace agreement with Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. In Walpole, NH, and in New York City, filmmaker Ken Burns was putting the finishing touches on his definitive 18-hour documentary about America's pastime, Baseball. And in Philadelphia, a nine-year-old boy wept as his beloved Phillies lost the World Series in the bottom of the ninth...

Baseball would air on PBS the following year, the same year an unprecedented strike nearly shattered the game. Burns' brilliant documentary chronicled what, at the time, was the entire history of baseball, from its inception at the Elysian fields in the 1850s, to the very year my childhood dreams were broken.

I got over that loss, eventually, and realized that waiting a mere 15 years to witness my team get back to the World Series makes me one of the lucky ones. But in between those two fateful nights, I was also privileged to witness one of the most astounding and polarizing eras in all of baseball. This was the era of new franchises, astronomical salaries, devastating strikes, surges of international talent, the rebirth of the Yankees, the reverse of the Curse, and of course, the era of steroids.

Baseball the documentary, divided into nine parts called "innings," seemed to reach its finale just as baseball the sport was getting interesting again. Lucky for us, Ken Burns and co-director Lynn Novick came to the same opinion, and are now releasing The Tenth Inning, a two-part, four-hour follow-up special that covers the near-demise and the bittersweet reawakening of our nation's pastime. The program premieres Tuesday and Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET on PBS (check local listings).

This extra-inning sequel, for me, offers a chance to remove the purely historical lens, and to experience what so many viewers did with the original installments of Baseball. It allows me to relive the story of MY childhood -- to see MY heroes chronicled.

In the opening shots of The Tenth Inning, as a ragtime rendition of "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" washes over grainy film of baseball's late legends, we immediately feel the iconic Ken Burns signature evoking our deep-rooted sense of the past.

But as the photos turn to modern highlight clips, we are introduced (via Keith Olbermann, one of the many new faces in The Tenth Inning) to an interesting notion. Part of the magic of watching a game like baseball, he says, is that what you are witnessing is virtually the same exact game that was being played in the 1860s. Football may have replaced baseball as America's favorite sport, but baseball will always be America's pastime, and for good reason. More than any other sport, baseball is as interested in its past as in its future.

While other sports strive to evolve and improve, baseball remains largely unchanged, giving it a sort of timeless perfection that you can't help but appreciate and respect. As Olbermann points out, "As you come into to the start of a game or a season, or even the start of your own fandom, you feel as if you are joining the river midstream."

After a brief introduction, we are immediately exposed to one of the most beautiful moments of the entire four hours. In it, Jose Feliciano's soulful 1968 cover of "The Star Spangled Banner" plays over clips of children playing stickball and pickup games on the streets of the Dominican Republic. In one brief montage, we understand the gift that baseball has given to the world, and, in that same moment, foreshadow the gifts that these impoverished nations would soon give back to baseball.

When the song winds down, writers Burns, Novick and David McMahon pick up the story right where Baseball left off. Barry Bonds signing the most lucrative free agent contract up to that point. Expansion teams rising with new markets. International fan bases, new stadiums, the rise of cable TV. And the hint, just the ever-so-subtle hint, that players were starting to play with an unprecedented combination of speed and power.

Every minute of The Tenth Inning is beautifully told and effortlessly compelling, but some moments stand out as particularly noteworthy.

For example, It was wonderful to re-watch Cal Ripkin, the man who restored honor to the game after the deplorable strike, wave to a standing ovation after setting the record for consecutive games played.

It was wonderful to watch Joe Torre's eyes fill with tears after struggling his entire adult life to make it to "the top of Everest," and then to get there four more times in five years.

It was equally wonderful to watch rival fans, after 9/11, holding up signs saying "We Are All Yankees" as a wounded city's team neared a possible championship.

But the moment that truly brought tears to my eyes was when we are told the stories of victorious Red Sox fans placing notes and flags and scorecards at the graves of family members who lived and died without witnessing a championship. A camera shot pans in on a card that a son left for his father: "They did it, Dad," it reads. "Rest easy."

Of course, all the lighter moments are present as well. The brawls between the Sox and the Yankees. Mets fans throwing dollar bills at greedy players post-strike. The infamous fan interference at the Cubs' NLCS game. The Latin invasion of Pedro, Manny, Sosa, and Papi. The Japanese invasion of Ichiro and Matsui. The ridiculous salaries, and the even more ridiculous stats.

Which brings us to the underlying narrative of the entire story. By 1990, when Congress passed a law making it a felony to traffic anabolic steroids, the Olympics, NCAA and NFL already had banned them.  But baseball played by its own set of rules, in a world where the players were virtually untouchable.

Burns weaves the hints and implications throughout the four hours, sometimes subtly, sometimes more directly. But through his careful storytelling and his always-impressive knack for letting his interviewees contextualize, he finds a way to humanize the players involved, shedding an ambivalent empathy on the whole situation.

"Who in the whole country wouldn't take a pill to make more money at their job?" Chris Rock asks. Staring [presumably] at Burns, he adds, "If I said, 'Hey, there's a pill and you're gonna get paid like Steven Spielberg,' you would take the pill... You just would."

While by no means excusing the tarnishing effects on homerun records and the image of the game, Burns simply reminds us that this was a problem far more pervasive than most people thought. Untie the one string of Barry Bonds by adding an asterisk to his records, and you then have to untie endless other strings -- the players who pitched to him, the other sluggers against whom he competed -- until almost the entire league's statistical legacy has become unspooled.

Burns shows the whole story chronologically, from McGuire's rookie season home-run record to his crushing of Maris' seemingly untouchable single-season record, to his pitiable testimony before Congress, where he pleads the guilt-ridden Fifth.

We see Barry Bonds crack a long ball to tie (and later surpass) McGuire's astronomically inflated and dubious single-season home run mark -- aptly, at Enron Field -- and later see him quietly surpass Hank Aaron's all-time home-run record, while disenchanted crowds boo him every game along the way.

We see legends become suspects, and records become unofficial asterisks. But even more interestingly, we see a nation of fans move on. Regulations tightened up, and anabolic steroids all but disappeared. The games went on. The fans came out. And baseball, while always changing on some level, remained, at its core, exactly the same.

A brilliant piece in the film cites a quotation by English poet John Keats on what he felt was Shakespeare's greatest attribute in writing, something Keats called "negative capability." Simply put, it's the ability to remain intentionally undecided between two conflicting ideas -- to see things for exactly what they are without assigning the morals of right and wrong. At the end of the day, this is exactly what Burns has accomplished with this piece.

He doesn't create heroes and villains, or choose sides, or reach any permanent conclusions. Instead, through the good and the bad, he simply tells the story as honestly and objectively as he can, infusing it with a clear passion and respect for what he regards as "still the best game that's ever been invented."

And as I saw all the stories I've experienced since childhood play across the screen, stamped with that unique Ken Burns touch, it suddenly hit me. The Tenth Inning is by no means an ending to anything.

Rather, it's just another chapter in an ongoing history, perfectly preserved for anyone who wants to join the river midstream.

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At the Emmys, The Winner Is... First-Time Host Jimmy Fallon

August 30, 2010 6:34 AM

By Mark Bianculli

About twenty seconds into last night's 62nd Primetime Emmy Awards on NBC, I was dreading that it was going to be a long night. Twenty seconds later, I was on the edge of my seat laughing. And so I remained for the rest of the hilarious and energetic opening number, which seemed to validate what I've said for years: Jimmy Fallon is more talented than many people think.

Since his days on NBC's Saturday Night Live, Fallon has always gotten laughs, but critics of his work accuse him of being too childish, or not being able to keep a straight face among the comedy heavyweights. But where others saw unprofessionalism, I just saw a guy having fun -- so much fun that he occasionally broke character to let us be part of it.

But all the Fallon haters, I suspect, were silenced last night when we saw a more mature Jimmy, looking great, sounding great, hitting cues and landing punch lines. Seems his time on NBC's Late Night has really upped his game from class clown to seasoned host. He was comfortable, but not casual. Excited, but not giddy.

Not everything about the show was perfect, or even successful, but as far as Fallon was involved, I find it hard to make complaints. Maybe the acoustic guitar intros were a bit hokey, but they were brief, which isn't always the case with bits on these shows. The tweets might have missed the mark altogether. The show started to feel a bit slow during the second half, but overall it moved, and kept speeches brief (though whose awful idea was it to cut off Matt Weiner and NOT cut off Al Pacino?!).

On the other hand, the shout-out to Conan in the monologue played perfectly, and his introduction of Tom Selleck was strangely hilarious. But the greatest laughs, aside from the watch-it-twice-on-DVR opener, had to be the musical tribute to departing shows.

Fallon's greatest strength, aside from natural charm, is his arsenal of perfectly exaggerated impressions (see his Barry Gibb, Jerry Seinfeld, Robin Williams, Van Morrison, Mick Jagger, and many more).

Add Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong to the list of people he can absolutely tear apart. And it should be noted that the lyrics to that segment were just as solid as the impressions:

To the tune of Green Day's "Time of Your Life," saluting and summarizing the finale of ABC's Lost, Fallon-as-Armstrong sang, "The island, it was mythical / and, in the end, they died / I didn't understand it / but I tried..."

But perhaps the true key to Fallon's success (in life as well as this particular show) is his humility. He is a performer who can really bring it when he needs to, but otherwise stays very polite and confidently reserved. In the days before the Emmys, he called in to Ryan Seacrest's KISS-FM morning radio show for a plug, and made joke after joke at his own expense. After suggesting an idea to let the actors in the audience post messages on Twitter throughout the show, Seacrest asked if he thought people would then not pay any attention to him.

"Well," Fallon replied, "I'm already used to that." He shied from self-importance, promised to try his best, and admitted to being even more nervous than excited. "I've thrown up three times already. And that's just to lose weight."

But when he hung up the phone on the radio, it was hard not to like him, and even harder not to root for him. That same boyish enthusiasm that made him giggle during SNL skits is still very much alive in Fallon.

That lovable mix of earnestness and self-effacement we also find in the Conans and the Ellens of this world. With anything he does, Fallon's attitude just makes me want to laugh with him.

And last night, I did.

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Predicting the Emmys -- Take Two

August 27, 2010 4:55 AM

By Mark Bianculli

Actress in a Comedy Series:
Who Should Win: Edie Falco
Who Will Win: Edie Falco
Too bad the award isn't "most brilliant woman alive in comedy," because if so, Tina Fey would walk away with it every year. But since it's specifically an "actress" award, I think it would take a miracle to beat the likes of Edie Falco (...a miracle, or Toni Collette).

Actor in a Comedy Series:
Who Should Win: Jim Parsons
Who Will Win: Alec Baldwin
Parsons seems to be the easy fan favorite in this one, but I doubt the Academy will forget just what a true master of comedy Alec Baldwin has consistently proven to be.

Actor in a Drama Series:
Who Should Win: Bryan Cranston
Who Will Win: Hugh Laurie
This one might be the toughest of all the predictions. No disrespect to Kyle Chandler or Matthew Fox, but I would be equally happy for the recipient of the Emmy this year if it were Cranston, Hamm, Laurie, or Hall. All four characters are modern legends by this point, and each actor gave quite the performance this year to keep him at such a deserving level. My heart wants Cranston for the three-peat. My head says Laurie will be recognized for a particularly difficult season.

Actress in a Drama Series:
Who Should Win: Julianna Margulies
Who Will Win: Julianna Margulies
This one's a no-brainer (hopefully, or I'll look very stupid). Hottest new drama. Hottest new character. Margulies is wonderful (and beautiful) in everything she's in. Time for a second Emmy.

Outstanding Comedy Series:
Who Should Win: Glee
Who Will Win: Glee
This one is actually quite the toss-up (in my opinion) between Modern Family and Glee. And while I think Modern Family is actually the more clever and funny of the two shows, I think that Glee is more original and unique. (And yes, I can hear the words of my father telling me something can't be "more unique" than something else). Glee zoned in on the zeitgeist, hit the sweet spot, and knocked out something commercial AND entertaining. Such a fresh, breakout hit deserves the Emmy.

Outstanding Drama Series:
Who Should Win: Mad Men
Who Will Win: Mad Men
Another insanely tough call to make, considering the talent and quality here. I am ruling out True Blood (for many reasons, sorry, fans!) and Dexter (brilliant, but not quite enough to take on this competition). So who is left?

Lost? Might win points for an emotional and much-anticipated ending, but I don't think so. Good Wife? Actually, it might. Its procedural-serial hybrid style is fresh and fun, and Margulies is amazing. But my favorite two shows for three years running have been Breaking Bad and Mad Men.

Now, I'm crazy enough to argue that Breaking Bad's second season was better than Mad Men's. But this is season three. And, though I am afraid to say "ever" because of my young frame of reference, Breaking Bad had one of the most satisfying season openers that I've... ever seen (specifically the brilliant opening shot). Problem is, Mad Men had one of the most satisfying season CLOSERS I've ever seen, to end what I consider its best season yet. I think it's a hands-down victory for Mad Men, once again.

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GUEST BLOG #105: Mark Bianculli Talks TV -- Or, The Son Also Criticizes

July 16, 2010 10:00 AM

[Bianculli here -- DAVID Bianculli here, that is: I'm even more proud than usual to introduce the newest writer in our ever-expanding TV WORTH WATCHING stable: He's Mark Bianculli, my son. He grew up watching quality TV (how could he not?), was a TV critic for his college paper, and the same week I launched this website in 2007, he moved to Hollywood, hoping to write for television rather than about it. Until that happens, I've persuaded him to join us here. He's a better writer than I was at his age --and since he's only 26, he lowers our correspondents' average age the way Anderson Cooper does on 60 Minutes. Please welcome him, as he starts off by considering what makes good TV so good in the first place...]

It's Not the Story, It's the Storytelling

By Mark Bianculli

"So," it began, "what do you want to do out here?"

My immediate answer: "TV writer."

The unimpressed response: "Interesting. Why television?"

Maybe this wasn't going to be the smoothest job interview with a talent manager who made his living off of motion pictures. But I needed the assistant job. I thought for a moment.

"Because it's character-building."

While I got an unintentional laugh out of it, what I was actually trying to say is that unlike movies, television's unique strength is the ability to develop characters to their finest and fullest. To truly build characters.

Now, that's not to say that movies don't deliver some of the greatest characters of all time. Of course they do. All I'm suggesting is that when you watch such amazingly drawn characters as Col. Hans Landa in Inglourious Basterds, or Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men, or Sgt. William James in The Hurt Locker, you're only left wanting more.

When you watch Don Draper in Mad Men, however, or Walter White in Breaking Bad, or Dexter Morgan in Dexter, more is exactly what you get.

But this begs another question. Which is better? Isn't the cardinal rule of show business to always leave them wanting more? Don't TV shows eventually jump the shark and turn groundbreaking stories into tired, threadbare routines?

Well, yes and no. Some stories only need so much time to unfold, and need to go only so deep. Some things are better left unexplained or unfinished. But when you have seventy hours to explore your characters instead of two, you inherit the ability to make their relationships that much more complex, and to strike that many more chords with the emotions of your viewers. To this effect, a good movie is like a riveting short story. Good television is like a novel.

Taking this analogy a step further, consider your favorite novels. If asked why you like them so much, would it ever come down to how good the ending was, or the action-packed plot points? I'd bet that nine times out ten, it was the lyrical prose, the soulful insight, or the carefully crafted subtleties that kept you turning the pages. In other words, it's not the story that ultimately grabs you, but the storytelling.

This is why it's no surprise that a show like AMC's Mad Men is being heralded as the next great American novel. A period piece set in a time of extravagance and social change, with themes of truth and identity and class-rising woven throughout, this show begins by introducing us to one of the most fascinating characters in years, Madison Avenue ad exec Don Draper. A slick, mysterious, philandering alpha male who drinks, smokes, and cons his way to success -- who wouldn't want to watch this guy?

But Mad Men wouldn't necessarily work as a movie. The dark secret of Don's past is revealed quickly, and it isn't all that dark. The key to this show's success lies rather in the ability to slowly (and cleverly) dig deeper and deeper into the lives of the ensemble as well as Don, and to let the drama stem from human emotion, not action.

Writer-producer David E. Kelley's mantra on writing good characters was simple: make every character interesting enough so that you would be perfectly happy to follow them out of the room. In the case of Mad Men, literally every single character becomes more and more interesting with each minute of screen time.

By the end of season three, Joan, Peggy, Roger, Peter, and Betty are all Don Drapers in a sense, with enough intrigue and dynamism to make us eagerly follow them anywhere. In the movies, this would be impossible. No matter how fascinating the supporting characters, we would never have time to "leave the room." (Fine, maybe in Lord of the Rings).

But Don Draper and company are members of just one in a long line of stellar ensemble shows. Breaking Bad (also on AMC) approaches its story in a completely different style, turning and twisting violently at the surface over deeper themes of love, family, and virility. Here we have a lead character who, until a gradual transformation, is the anti-Don Draper.

Walter White (played by two-time Emmy winner Bryan Cranston) is a terminally ill high school chemistry teacher who teams up with a former student (played by Aaron Paul) to build his family a nest egg by selling crystal meth. From the very opening shot of the pilot, we are being dared to catch up to a story that is rushing by us at a frenetic pace.

Vince Gilligan pulls out some of his classic "teaser" tricks from his days on the X-Files, and taunts viewers with hints and misdirection, ultimately delivering some of the most inventive and well-crafted TV storytelling in years. And throughout the immediate dangers and dire consequences, we slow down enough to catch beautiful dialogue and deep emotional struggles. Add its wonderful humor, and you've got a show that carefully (and impressively) hits every note a viewer could possibly want.

Breaking Bad is indeed very different from a show like Mad Men. But the effect is the same: a web of wonderfully complex characters whose stories end up trumping the original series hook. Same goes for the The Sopranos, The Wire, Six Feet Under, Lost, Treme, Dexter, Damages, and countless others. All stories which, because of television, are given the time to plant proper seeds, to navigate through different perspectives. To write the novel.

Now, I realize this argument is a generalization, and that both sides are full of exceptions. Shows like 24 and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation aren't exactly based on the novels of Proust, and there are plenty of movies (The Lives of Others comes to mind) that prove just how subtly and passionately a human drama can be told.

But one thing is certain. Television, like life, lets us truly get to know people. Slower burns make for bigger payoffs. Breakups hurt more, and victories taste sweeter. Endings and beginnings become less easily defined.

Unlike the ephemeral quality of movies -- that perfect snapshot into the most interesting moment of one's life -- TV, at its best, sticks around for the long haul. It shows us what happens after you get the girl, or better yet, after you never get the girl. It stays with us long after we've lost our loved ones, or reaches back to a time before we even met them. It tells a complete story, for better or worse. There's something courageous in that.

So three years, two jobs, and one internship later, my convictions are exactly the same as they were in that very first interview.

When asked? My answer: always, and immediately:

"TV writer."

--

Mark Bianculli is former TV columnist for his high school and college newspapers, occasionally writing a feature or two professionally. After multiple internships on television shows and two-and-a-half years in talent management, he is still writing scripts and waiting for his chance to be a professional TV writer. And waiting... and waiting...

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