If "24" can be used to justify torture, why can't Breaking Bad be overblown in the media for good?

Over what I'm sure will be some howls of objection, I maintain that Breaking Bad is the best show on AMC, better than that other one that everyone else talks about. The main reason would be that there doesn't seem to be a greater dramatic actor with comedy instincts than Bryan Cranston (splitting hairs a bit, as I think Hugh Laurie is the best comedic actor with dramatic instincts), but there are at least three issues it raises with high quality:

  • The law of unintended consequences is ultimately what runs the show. Almost every action taken by a character has a later reaction, predictable or otherwise.
  • Bankruptcy from health-related causes is a serious problem, and it's the lack of a strong insurance system that keeps people from picking their own (quality) doctors.
  • Drug addicts are people too -- any kind of approach to dealing with the problems of addiction must take it into account.
Letting alone the fact that Walter White is apparently as screwed-up a man as any of us, having made more than his fair share of bad life decisions, the precarious position that Walter White is in could have been mitigated by an insurance plan that didn't burden him with an expensive treatment.

The worst part of this is that we can't likely get back to the real meat of the discussion: what are the consequences, intended and otherwise, of each proposed change in the healthcare system in America, since the debate is buried on verifiably false scare claims.

In short this is another example of what I think of as the regression-to-the-mean of policy effects: consequences that appear large are most likely overblown, and those that appear small are likely bigger.

P.S. If you don't believe me about Bryan Cranston's dramatic chops, see him as Buzz Aldrin first.

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