I've got it bad. Real bad.
I'm completely infatuated with a cancer-ridden, 51-year-old high school chemistry teacher. But it's fine, because so are 2.8 million other people.
Actually, I probably have even more people on my side than that. Almost 3 million people tuned in for the midseason five finale of AMC's hit Breaking Bad on Sept. 4, but that doesn't include the millions of people who have "BrBa" on their Netflix instant ques.
If you have Netflix and have never watched Breaking Bad, you're doing it wrong.
I've never watched an episode of Breaking Bad on television - same goes for almost every fanatic of the show I know. How Americans view TV is changing and our generation is leading the way.
My dad always tells me "patience is a virtue." But you know what? When it comes to my favorite meth-slinging drama, saturated with cliffhangers and intricate plot twists, "patience" can bite it.
But as much as I love the show now, I didn't know anything about it when it premiered in 2008. I started hearing the name bounced around once it received attention at the Emmy Awards, but I never turned on AMC to catch an episode.
Then I got Netflix and everything changed.
Breaking Bad will steal your life. You will go on what I call, "BrBa Binges." This involves sitting around in your underwear, completely submerged in Walter White's bald head, while munching on Doritos and frozen pizza, losing chunks of your life in front of your glowing computer screen.
Four seasons of the show are on Netflix, most of them 13 episodes long. I finished, on average, one season per week over the month of August.
I'm pretty sure the only thing more addicting than methamphetamine is a show brilliantly crafted around making and selling it. If you disagree, you've clearly never watched the show. Or you have a weak stomach and couldn't get through the first few episodes - which is totally understandable - but not really, because the first season is just as brilliant as the most recent one.
Season five isn't on Netflix at all. If you're inspired by the main characters' criminal lifestyles, you can find it pretty easily pirated online, or buy it the legal way off of iTunes (which Jesse Pinkman would think is totally lame, yo).
The thing is, new episodes of the show don't come out until the summer of 2013.
I can't do that. That reality does not compute in my impatient, young adult brain. It sounds selfish and horrible, but I'm used to getting what I want when I want it. That's what Netflix has done to me. I had hours of my favorite show at my mercy. Now that luxury is gone, and I'm not sure how I am going to struggle through until the summer.
But it's not like having my favorite things instantly and all at once is unusual. I don't have to go to the store to get the new Mumford & Son's album on Tuesday; it's already slated to automatically download to my iPhone the moment it's released.
When I'm hungry, I can get food shoved at me through a window without leaving the driver's seat of my car. Want to talk to someone while I'm writing this column? No need to fumble with my phone, I can send them a Facebook message that will go directly to their phone if they're not on the Internet. Easy.
Everything is instant. I never realized how unfamiliar I am with waiting for things until Breaking Bad. It may be totally pathetic, but I know there is an army of people who feel my pain.
Netflix has 23 million subscribers. I see more of my friends plowing through five seasons of How I Met Your Mother over a few months on Netflix than I do catching its reruns on TBS.
We're all spoiled. The days of watching a show sporadically are over. We all want to watch shows in their entirety, in the proper order and completely at our personal convenience.
We're breaking the old television rhythm. Cable is expensive; Netflix is $7.99 a month. It's what college students can afford and the medium to watch television we've gotten used to. We watch our shows on our time, and while the Nielsen ratings may suffer from it, everyone will be too engrossed in their instant queues to notice.
Email: sara.dinatale@ubspectrum.com
Photo: Breadchastick / Wikimedia Commons
