I have now finished Breaking Bad. While I'm sure that most of you have probably already watched it (at least out of those of you who would be interested in watching such a show), I still feel like sharing my thoughts. No spoilers, I promise.
First of all, the setting is great. It would have been easy for these guys to move it a little bit to the west and set it in Los Angeles because we don't have nearly enough TV shows, movies, etc. set in fucking Los Angeles these days, or move it a little bit to the east and set it in Texas and give us a bunch of yee-haws and cowboy hats. Instead, they took a chance on a setting that we don't see too often, with an interesting culture and a look and feel that fits the show perfectly. It's a modern Western of sorts, but one that's written so well that it avoids almost all of the clichés that most Westerns suffer from.
Speaking of the writing, it's fantastic. What particularly stands out about it (and the directing) is the blend of gritty realism and occasional bursts of - let's face it, complete and utter silliness. The goofy montages with the offbeat, jarring music. Walter pulling ridiculous solutions to his problems out of his ass with SCIENCE! Saul is basically a cartoon character. Gus is pretty much a Bond villain. I could go on, but the point is that this isn't a bad thing. It actually plays a vital role in livening up the show and making it entertaining as well as compelling. Most importantly of all, it never - well, almost never - overplays this element and make the story seem too far-fetched.
I was somewhat disappointed with the final season. A lot of it is just filler, and the new antagonists were really, really lame. I won't go into more detail because spoilers oh no, but I'm sure those of you who have yet to watch this will see what I mean when you get around to that part. Still, it was a reasonably satisfying conclusion to the series, and with the finale in particular I was especially glad to see that they kept it nice and straightforward, with none of that stupid, "deep," abstract bullshit that certain other shows concluded with.
I'm not sure if I have anything else to say about it. I tried to avoid talking about things that the critics and reviewers have already discussed to death, which is why I'm not bothering with praising Bryan Cranston's performance or whatever. Anyway, the show is gud, watch it if you haven't already.
tl;dr Snape kills Dumbledore