10 More Crime Related Masterpieces
Breaking Bad is arguably the greatest television show of all time. Never before had there been a series that took the main character on such a twisted journey of destruction. Walter White is a middle aged high school chemistry teacher, who moonlights at a car wash to make ends meet. He is deep in the monotony of a marriage, with a disabled teenager and a baby on the way.
Things take a turn for the worse when he is diagnosed with lung cancer and a switch flips in him and he decides he must make some serious money to leave his family before he dies. He joins his DEA brother in law on a ride along drug bust and decides that cooking meth is the way forward to secure his family’s future. He reconnects with ex student, Jesse Pinkman, a low level drug player and a crime partnership is born.
Breaking Bad burst onto the scene in 2008, but it took a few years for viewers to catch on to it’s brilliance, but when they did, it quickly became one of the most iconic shows of all time. It ended on a high after 5 seasons, but naturally left fans wanting more, and seeking out other shows that could fill the void left by Walter White and co. Here is a list of shows to watch if you like Breaking Bad.
Weeds
Weeds is about a struggling parent who starts selling drugs to provide for their family. Now that sounds a lot like Breaking Bad in many ways right? Not so fast, this show is more comedy than drama, but there are similarities which make it a must watch.
It follows Nancy Botwin, a widowed mother of two boys, who starts selling cannabis to make ends meet. It features a quirky cast of characters who aide Nancy in her drug dealing ways. The show ran for 8 seasons between 2005-2012, and a reboot of the show was announced in 2019 but nothing has come to fruition yet. The show went on a bit too long and doesn’t really need a reboot, but it’s a fun and easy going show to watch.
Barry
The key to Breaking Bad‘s success was knowing when to end its run without outstaying it’s welcome and here’s another show that achieved this status as well. Barry stars Bill Hader as a low level hitman who joins an acting class and starts to question his existence and the way he makes a living. It starts out as more of a comedy but when the final season hit screens, it had become so dark, it was almost like a completely different show.
Many of the episodes have echoes of Breaking Bad in its broodiness and dark subject matter. It raises similar life affirming questions that make it a must-watch for fans of Vince Gilligan’s epic show. It only ended this year, so if you haven’t seen it yet, it is the perfect show to binge with 8 episodes a season, all of them 30 minutes long.
The Sopranos
There’s a big argument over which is the greatest show of all time. Breaking Bad or The Sopranos? Television wouldn’t be the way it is now without David Chase’s epic mob drama. The Sopranos premiered in 1999 and it was the birth of the television revolution as we know it.
Television always existed in the shadows of movies before Tony Soprano sat down with his therapist and detailed the life of a gangster struggling to balance his crime family with his immediate one at home. It kept the audience gripped to their seats for over 8 years before it eventually cut to black, leaving fans wondering what happened to Tony.
Ozark
Breaking Bad introduced the audience to drug cartels and unimaginable violence, and Ozark took the baton and delved deeper into this world. Marty Byrd and his family are money launderers for the Mexican cartel, and find themselves having to flee to the Lake of the Ozarks, to expand their criminal business over there.
Little do they know, this tranquil place is the home of some very nefarious players, and the family find themselves in many scrapes over the course of 4 crime filled seasons.
Justified
Raylan Givens is a deputy U.S Marshal, forced to transfer to his Kentucky home town, after the shooting of a suspect. It doesn’t take long for him to start causing trouble here, making enemies with the local criminal fraternity and re-connecting with old flames. Timothy Olyphant plays the titular character and elevates it to more than the run of the mill cop show.
Based on the books by Elmore Leonard, Justified ran for 6 seasons, before being rebooted this year for a spin off show titled Justified: City Primeval. This isn’t merely a cash grab reboot of a once successful show, it is based on the original source material and it’s a welcome return for one of the best shows on television.
Sons of Anarchy
This show charts the rise and fall of Jax Teller, the idealistic president of a motorcycle club in the fictional town of Charming in California.
Things start going wrong for Jax and the Motorcycle club in Sons of Anarchy when they get involved in drugs. So if you liked the downfall that drugs created in Breaking Bad, this 7 season crime drama is a must for your watchlist.
Mr Inbetween
When Breaking Bad came out in 2008, fans who caught onto its brilliance early on could not believe why more people weren’t watching it and raving about it. It very much went under the radar for many years before reaching the viewership it deserved. In 2018, another show arrived that has similarly not received the credit it deserves. Mr Inbetween remains an unknown commodity two years after coming off the air after an excellent 3 season run.
It’s an Australian comedy drama created by and starring Scott Ryan. He plays Ray Shoesmith, a man who is juggling the same things we all are, being a parent, having relationships and dealing with difficult family members.
The only difference is, Ray is also a hitman for hire, trying to keep his criminal life separate from his personal life. He is also battling demons of his own, as he hilariously attends anger management classes. It’s one of the best shows to grace our screens since Breaking Bad went off the air in 2013. It’s a must watch and you can catch all 3 seasons on Disney+ now.
Narcos
Before Pedro Pascal became famous for killing zombies in the epic video game adaptation of The Last of Us, he was on the trail of iconic drug lord, Pablo Escobar in the under rated Netflix series, Narcos.
Pascal played real life DEA agent, Javier Pena as he chased after a different drug kingpin in each season of the show. Unfortunately, the show could never recapture the brilliance of the first season as Pena and co hunted down Escobar and his crew. But all 30 episodes are still worth a watch, especially if you enjoyed the drug cartel aspects of Breaking Bad.
Better Call Saul
Better Call Saul is the ultimate show to watch if you liked Breaking Bad. Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould co created the spin off focussing on Walter and Jesse’s shady lawyer, Saul Goodman. Bob Odenkirk proves he’s more than just a supporting actor in this stunning series that primarily tells the story of Jimmy McGill before he adopted the Saul Goodman alter ego.
The 6 season run is littered with returning characters from the parent series, like Mike Ehrmantraut and Gustavo Fring, alongside a compelling new cast of quirky characters. It came to a dazzling end last year, with many fans accepting that this is probably the final entry in the Bad-Verse.
Dexter
Similar to Walter White, Dexter Morgan thinks he is justified in killing the people he does. The ‘victims’ are very much in the game so they know the risks involved. But unlike Mr White, Dexter has a deep urge to kill that he must control to keep his head above water. Dexter originally ran for 8 seasons, but many fans started to turn on the iconic character after season 4, with the show starting to show signs of wear and tear.
Many fans hated the way the show ended, so it was a relief when the show was rebooted in 2021, with the promise of a more definitive ending for our favourite serial killer. Dexter: New Blood ran for 10 episodes and was set 10 years after the original series ended.
It featured a new cast of characters and was set in the fictional town of Iron Lake in upstate New York. The show righted some of the wrongs of season 8 but also created a new a load of new ones for fans to moan about.
So there we have it, our 10 TV show alternatives to watch when you’re finished watching Breaking Bad?
What do you think of our picks? Do you agree? Are there any notable omissions? Let us know in the comments below!