Box of delight

A high school teacher finds out that he has terminal cancer and decides to cook meth in order to make money for his family." Twenty years ago that would have sounded like an insane premise for a television show. Ten years ago that show actually premiered. Almost five years ago it ended its both widely watched and critically acclaimed five-season run. Breaking Bad could only have emerged at a certain point in television history, when the high-quality, cinematic drama became a viable prospect even for a basic-cable network like AMC. But it never would have got anywhere without an impressive pilot, the first episode of a series that provides a sense of what the whole thing will be like.