Like most people, the first I had heard of Breaking Bad was when Bryan Cranston received his surprise Best Actor Emmy nomination last year - and even then, the fact that the show existed didn't really stay in my head until Cranston beat out Jon Hamm to actually get the Emmy. And still, I never got around to watching the show - maybe because I was a little bitter about Jon Hamm losing, but mostly because the premise sounded a little hokey.

If you don't know, Cranston plays Walt White, a high school chemistry teacher who discovers that he has lung cancer and probably as, at most, a year to live. But with the mortgage on his house, a teenage son with cerebral palsy and a wife who is several months pregnant (with a "surprise" baby), Walt realizes that if he dies, his family will be practically destitue. So, after a series of bizarre events in which he runs into a drug-dealing former student of his, Walt decides partner up with him and to use his own chemistry knowledge to make and sell crystal meth. (Oh, and to make things a little more complicated, Walt's brother-in-law is a DEA agent.) So, basically, I thought this was Weeds.

Warning: spoilers ahead, for those who haven't watched the show.

But in advance of last night's second season premiere, AMC spent the weekend airing a Season 1 marathon, so I spent much of my days off watching them straight through - and Weeds, it sure isn't. Breaking Bad isn't without its problems, but it's a completely different show than I expected. For one, things go badly for Walt almost right from the get go, and he is immediately faced with the problem of having to do horrible things, things he never thought he would have to do, in order to support his family. And I don't mean dealing meth - at the end of the first episode, a couple of drug dealers show up to Walt's RV/meth lab, demanding to see how their product is made and, it's pretty clear, intending to kill both Walt and his partner once it's over. So Walt sets off a chemical explosion, traps the dealers in the RV, and kills them.

Well, until the second episode, when it's revealed that one of the dealers didn't die and now Walt has to kill him again - and not in self-defense. In self-preservation. And while, in TV world, many characters would be a little upset but realize that it's a necessary evil, Walt reacts in the way that most of us would: he is truly tormented and miserable and confused that he may actually have to commit murder.

And, dare I say it, Cranston deserved that Emmy. Really. He plays this impotent shell of a man who is suddenly woken up to the world around him in the most horrible way possible. He has let life make his decisions for him, and he's ended up in a flat, meaningless existence - even though he loves his family, he feels trapped by them. Even when he gets cancer, his family, and his wife especially, begin to take charge of how his treatment will go; even though we don't agree with Walt's decision to sell meth, you understand that this is him taking charge for the first time in years.

This isn't to say that Breaking Bad is a bleak show completely devoid of fun. There are genuinely funny moments - Dean Norris as Walt's galoot of a brother-in-law is brilliant, as are several one-liners by other characters. It takes talent to to make a scene both funny and sad at the same time, but executive producer Vince Gilligan pulls it off several times an episode.

Breaking Bad's major fault lies in the writing of Walt's wife, Skyler. She is supposed to be the entire reason Walt is putting himself through all this - he loves her and he wants to see her happy and comfortable after his death. Except that she's written as such an overbearing, humourless shrew that it's hard to understand why he cares about her. I could, to a certain extent, understand that Walt had been beaten down by life and merely thought he loved her, but the show and Skyler are clearly not written that way. She truly loves Walt and wants them to be equals in their relationship, but at the same time, is endlessly naggy and harps on everything. If we're to believe that Walt would actually kill people and steal and deal drugs for this woman, we have to like her, at least a little bit. And I don't.

That said, Sunday night's premiere was incredible - Walt and his partner make an unadvised alliance with an insane drug dealer named Tuco, who doesn't think twice about beating one of his henchman to DEATH for one little slip-up. When Walt's partner suggests killing Tuco, we get a great scene of them actually figuring out how that would be possible. "We pull a gun - two shots in the head? Three? How do we get the other guys with him? How many does he have with him? What will we do with the bodies?" They ask all the logistical problems that most TV characters should ask when faced with a similar problem, but then, most TV shows gloss over this kind of thing in favour of shiny, pretty action.

So, yes, even though Jon Hamm lost at the Emmys, I have decided to forgive Cranston for it. Without him, I'm not sure I would have made it past the second episode of Breaking Bad, and because of him, I think I'm hooked.