An introduction to our forthcoming methfest ‘Bad Week’: a weeklong party dedicated to Breaking Bad, ahead of the launch of its spinoff Better Call Saul.
On February 9th, New Zealand time, Breaking Bad prequel Better Call Saul makes its debut. The show will screen exclusively on Lightbox in New Zealand, and we’ve decided to devote a whole week to exhuming Breaking Bad’s embalmed corpse and conducting a thorough autopsy.
As Street Week, our acclaimed celebration of all things Ferndale, did for Shortland Street, Bad Week will do for Breaking Bad. We’ll come at it very much from a New Zealand perspective, where meth operates under the snappy name ‘P, and has fueled some of our most tragic and notorious crimes.
The approach will be sweet, sour and – very occasionally – sober. Matt Heath will recount his experiences as this country’s unintended brand ambassador for meth after writing a song celebrating the drug. The New Zealand Initiative’s Head of Research Eric Crampton will examine the economic lessons of the show, and we’ll have an interview with former drug squad detective Dale Kirk to sense check the show’s portrayal of law enforcement.
Other Spinoff writers will do some data mining, check out the show’s weird fans, its extraordinary villains, its proudly middle American food and, incomprehensibly, argue for the supremacy of Kenny Powers over Walter White. Plus we’ll watch and review the first episode of Better Call Saul ahead of its TV debut.
It’s going to be a good time, staying up for a whole week getting wide-eyed and extremely intense as we play with the show. We’re so excited about it that we’ve arranged for famed meth cop Mike Sabin to resign and a tourist to do something wonderfully idiotic just to promote our cool idea.
So please come back and get a sweet, strong hit every day next week.