Streaming distribution rights kept Breaking Bad alive and reshaped its franchise.

Evidence

Perhaps the greatest loop of all, a widening gyre of swirling flush, is the universe recycling of sopping content, reaping efficiencies from sprawling recirculation of the same conceits. Behold, for example, the rushing of Breaking Bad into Better Call Saul and other spin-offs. Breaking Bad’s production history nicely encapsulates the trajectory from cable to streaming: it started out ambitiously, prestige aspirant, to be shot on film on location in Albuquerque in conspicuously “Western” cinematography, and with intricate moral and intellectual transformations for its characters. Rejected by HBO and Showtime, its pilot season was recorded for and aired on FX, and then the show was sold to AMC as they looked for a successor to their smash Mad Men (also rejected by HBO). However, it performed only middlingly until Netflix acquired distribution rights in 2010, shortly before the fourth season premiered on network. This acquisition so boosted the network ratings that it kept the show on the air, as the show’s creator acknowledged in his Emmy acceptance speech. — Anna Kornbluh, Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late…, 228

Categorization

• CANDY: The Breaking Bad/Netflix rescue story is a genuinely fun, shareable fact — cable rejections, middling ratings, streaming saves the show.