+3
It's incredible that I actually didn't like this show at all during its first season and struggled to make it to mid-season 2 before getting hooked.
I think one thing that hasn't been mentioned throughout this thread is the way in which Breaking Bad stands out from other drama series. It works towards a certain point and does so over the course of its life span. Ever since season 1, even though it might not've been intended back then, Gilligan has made Walt turn into something worse and worse, going off the rails and heavily foreshadowing that his life won't end in a pretty way. All throughout, there is little or no reset and the start of each season.
You think about it, even the most revered series like Deadwood, The Wire, Sopranos, Oz, Luther, Mad Men, etc, hit the reset button at the end of each season after building dramatic crescendo for the final episode(s). There is usually no clear-cut next point they will work towards. That's not a knock on them, because lots of those series had uncertain futures and it's totally understandable that the creators wanna have nicely wrapped-up seasons so as not to leave viewers totally hanging (i.e. like Carnivale did).
In that sense, Breaking Bad is - to my knowledge - unique. Great show, b!tch.