10 TV Episodes That Should Have Jumped the Shark (But Didn't)

Breaking Bad's third season far surpassed the show's original premise of a science teacher (Bryan Cranston's Walter White) 'breaking bad' and teaming up with his former student Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) to cook drugs and make some quick cash. While the core of the show - Walter and Jesse - was still going strong, mafiosos, crooked lawyers, and assassins entered the picture and things got complicated, keeping us on the edge of our seats throughout. 

But as danger closed in on all sides, the season's tenth episode, "Fly", took a major detour from the driven serial format, just three episodes before the season finale. And how did it manage this? By having Walter and Jesse spend the entire episode in the meth lab trying to catch a fly. The show had built up such a head of steam, and the overarching narrative had grown almost unbearably tense, that to suddenly make a sharp left turn into a comedic bottle episode seemed unthinkable, and yet...

Fly manages to crack open the heart and soul of its characters while nothing much of note happens, using the time spent to move from tension to comedy, to an on-off conversation that reveals parts of Walt's interior that the rest of the season couldn't reach. And while viewing figures weren't great at the time, the episode has made its mark as a fan and critic favourite.