Bob Odenkirk Credits a Major Change After Season 4 With the Show’s Incredible Success

Though it didn’t get a lot discover throughout the first 4 seasons, by the time Breaking Dangerous left TV, it was a cultural phenomenon. The neo-Western crime drama’s success led to a spinoff, Higher Name Saul, which propelled Bob Odenkirk to even higher fame.

However none of this is able to have occurred with out one change that occurred after the fourth season. It didn’t solely change the trajectory of Breaking Dangerous; it modified Odenkirk’s profession eternally. 

Netflix catapulted ‘Breaking Bad’ to just about unprecedented success

Creator Vince Gilligan (L) and actor Bob Odenkirk of Breaking Dangerous | Kevin Winter/Getty Photographs

Between his time on Breaking Dangerous and starring in the spinoff Higher Name Saul, Odenkirk has inhabited the character of Saul Goodman for 14 years. However when he joined the solid, the viewers for Breaking Dangerous was pretty small. All of this modified when Netflix began airing the first 4 seasons of the present.

“I came to Breaking Bad at the end of the second season; it was not remotely a hit,” he defined to Dax Shepard on the Armchair Expert podcast. “No talk of a hit. Critics loved it. People who knew it loved it — and that was a small group of people.”

Shepard agreed, and he identified that Netflix modified all that, saying it was the first time the streaming big had this impact on a longtime TV present. 

“It was an unbelievable marriage of material and machine,” Odenkirk expressed. “Literally, the computer machine got fast enough to stream a show that was perfect and amazing for streaming.”

Odenkirk discovered himself in the center of a cultural phenomenon. However the function wasn’t a course he’d ever thought his life would take. The New York Times studies that his old flame was comedy.

Years earlier than, he was a common at the well-known Chicago comedy membership Second Metropolis, and he wrote sketches for Saturday Evening Stay in the ’90s. The Berwyn, Illinois, native was concerned with a number of completely different comedy TV sequence, both as an actor or a author. 

Regardless of the regular work and the respect he earned in comedy circles when he was supplied the function on Breaking Dangerous, he couldn’t afford to say no. As he places it, “I needed money!”

As Shepard put it on his podcast, “That’s not where you were aiming your f–king ship at any point, right?” “Not remotely,” Odenkirk agreed. “If they’d asked me to audition for that, I wouldn’t have done it.” 

Earlier this yr, Odenkirk launched a memoir. Even the Higher Name Saul star’s e book title factors to the actuality of his profession. It’s known as Comedy Comedy Comedy Drama: A Memoir. In it, he describes it as “a showbiz tale told by a determined idiot.”

The ‘Netflix effect’ on trendy TV reveals

Netflix not solely modified Odenkirk’s life eternally by elevating Breaking Dangerous to its now cult-classic standing. It additionally modified the face of TV. Vox studies that Breaking Dangerous had lower than two million viewers for the Season 4 finale on AMC. Then, Netflix aired the previous episodes, and viewership soared. After simply 5 seasons, the sequence finale aired, drawing 10 million viewers.

This phenomenon is known as the “Netflix effect,” and it introduced consideration to TV reveals that had slipped out of the public discover. For a whereas, this sample benefited each the networks and the streaming service. However earlier than lengthy, the networks determined they’d make more cash by creating their very own streaming companies. 

The Netflix impact might not have lasted lengthy. However whereas it did, it modified the destiny of Breaking Dangerous and set Bob Odenkirk on a new profession path. 

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