Dexter vs. Breaking Bad

Daniel.

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Let me preface this thread by saying I'm one of the biggest Dexter stans on this site...

With that out of the way, I JUUSSSTTT finished Breaking Bad on Netflix and felt compelled to make this thread.

There were so many parallels between the shows, so many things Breaking Bad did that Dexter probably should have done for the general consensus not to be that the show fell off. So let's get some perspective on the shows, now 2 years after they both ended - where things went right, where things went wrong.

From a purely visceral level, I will never be able to say Breaking Bad was better than Dexter. I had an emotional connection to the show and the character's that just didn't happen with BB. It's like the difference between watching the Knicks win a championship versus the Jets - I'm a fan of both, I follow both, I enjoy them when they're successful, but I could happily live life without a Jets SB win - I wouldn't be able to say the same about the Knicks.

I WILL say, however, that BB was much smarter (might even say safer) with their overall approach to the show. BB at its core had a main character that was down on his luck, hated so many aspects of his life and allowed the one success of his life to be his downfall and made him a monster. Dexter was a monster, constantly striving to become human. Both were stories seeking redemption, but from two very different places in life. Keeping the timeline of the show so limited allowed for a much more simplified approach in that everything mattered because everything tied together. Dexter, on the other hand, became an overly complicated clusterfukk that would have benefited from that simplicity in that ultimately, as a fan of both shows, everyone wanted to see/know if he would get caught and what the consequence of that would be. BB had real consequences for WW's actions and he didn't skate by unrealistically like Dexter did for much of the show which I liked, while evolving WW from woe is me victim to callous monster.

Dexter evolved as well, but by the end, the player's in his evolution that mattered were all gone, leaving what I considered to be a very fitting, but also very underwhelming end. that was nowhere what it should have been because of the lead-up. Imagine if Rita was still alive, aware of Dexter's secret due to Trinity, them breaking the Big Bad formula and Dexter having to confront that exposure. Imagine if somehow they reconciled, but ultimately, we still got Lumberjack Dexter after he almost had his humanity back, versus the shyt with Hannah falling on its face. They opened the floodgates for so much that I think they ultimately oversaturated what could have been a much simpler story for such a complex character.

I'm not 100% on my goal in making this thread, outside of really putting together my thoughts on the two shows and seeing how other's feel about the show, but more than anything, I'm a little jealous to be honest. BB really kept it simple and stayed true to the core of the story and rarely felt like it had filler episodes and really worked within the confines of the character the show was built around. Dexter blew their wad early and just got so convoluted at times that it took away from the confines and while the stories all logically made sense, they didn't resonate because they all seemed rushed together at the end. Seasons 1-4 were the best because they were all built from each other. 5-8 could almost all operate independent of each other, with 7 being the best of them solely because it was built off the last bullet in the chamber they had in their season 6 finale. With all the potential, there was no way it should go down as lesser than BB.

IDK ya'll, I'm ranting and it's 1AM. If this is still front page by the AM, good looks. Just my thoughts. :yeshrug:
 
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mannyrs13

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The problem with Dexter was that it was all over the place from season to season. It tried to do too much. Breaking bad kept the storyline consistent. Every season of Dexter it seemed like the characters all had different storylines or there were new players in the game. And then it just got more ridiculous. It was decent until maybe right after trinity. They just couldn't top having John Lithgow. He played that role so good that the guest stars after that were lackluster.
 

Daniel.

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Leave your kid w/ a serial killer and become a lumberjack brehs:beli:

Like Walt left his baby girl with a an adulterer and tax cheat as a model to follow.

Let's not over simplify for the sake of criticism and look at the context a lil deeper, brehs. :beli:

I've never understood that angle btw. No one says "be a serial killer and have a child, brehs" so why was Dexter leaving Harrison with a killer, known specifically to kill out of need/self defense, any worse? If anything he left him in perfect hands.
 
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dexter at it's best was > breaking bad. like you said dexter was just a more powerful show.

but that show's fall from grace was painful to watch. it got baddddd.
 

BobbyBooshay

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Season 4 of Dexter was just
:banderas:

John Lithgoe
:banderas:

How it fell off after that season was emotional, maybe Dexter divorcing his sister was the downfall.
 

TheDarceKnight

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I can't even compare the two based on Dexter's last season alone. Dexter was some amazing TV for a while, but after the Trinity season there really wasn't much there. The last season is one of the worst fall-offs for a TV show in history, and arguably the worst. The final 4 eps had so many mishaps and mistakes that you literally don't know where to start. BB never made any giant mistakes like that. I mean Dexter fell apart entirely, and flew right off the wheels. BB you could argue took a little while to get cooking, and S5 may not have been as awesome as S4, but overall as a show it was so much better. Dexter had a lot of potential but I don't entirely blame them. Doing any show for that many seasons is almost impossible. Are there any dope shows that went longer than 5 seasons without falling off? 4-5 seems to be the magic number. Staff changes, ideas run out, people get burned out. Dexter went 8 seasons. It's hard to do anything and keep it creative and fresh really well for 7 years.
 

Zero

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Watched both shows.

Didn't read a thing in here :timmyimout:
 

Big Blue

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I'll say this. My reaction to the Season 4 finale of Dexter was only topped by the Red Wedding. But overall Breaking Bad was way more consistent and avoided jumping the shark. Dexter jumped out the window with Season 6.
 

Disgustya Stallone

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this is a great comparison... but i'd go with Dexter all day. Season 4 of that show trumps every season of BB easily.
 
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