Is Better Call Saul Better than Breaking Bad? Bob Odenkirk Answers

The sixth and final season of Better Call Saul, the highly acclaimed spin-off show of Breaking Bad starring Bob Odenkirk, is now streaming on AMC and Netflix. Many are asking themselves the age-old dilemma of which of the two series is the best. To give an authoritative answer, Bob, in an interview with the New York Times, said:

I think Breaking Bad is a universal kind of story. It’s a midlife crisis, and the dangers are more significant: more guns fly around, and the main character interacts with the drug dealers almost immediately. This is not the case on our show. Our show is more intimate. It is a stranger’s journey. It includes many details about being a lawyer. It is just less recognizable due to the argument. But thanks to a lot of hard work and their genius, the writers have come up with ways to make people understand some of the tensions and pressures these characters face and have related them to their travels.

The great thing is that Vince Gilligan and the Breaking Bad writing team showed audiences the value of watching something up close. And then they took that audience, and they have, and they said, “Now we’re going to do a show that you have to watch very closely.” It couldn’t have been done if Breaking Bad hadn’t been done first. A show like ours couldn’t have existed.

Although with the last episodes of Better Call Saul, the story of Breaking Bad will end, it is not said that other shows will not be created within the same narrative universe and therefore set still in Albuquerque. Dan McDermott, head of AMC, opened up to this possibility some time ago.

I can tell you that if I could do anything to encourage Vince [Gilligan] and Peter [Gould] to continue in this universe, I would – he said. I think you should ask them, but the door is always open, and I eagerly await the day when my phone will ring and Vince, Peter, or our friends at Sony will tell us, “Hey, I think we have another show; set in this universe.”