Breaking Bad: 10 Behind The Scenes Facts You Didn't Know
7. The Writer's Strike Changed Season One
The Writer's Guild of America strike took place from November 2007 to February 2008, lasting exactly 100 days, making it the most disruptive strike of the century as the writers sought better pay and a larger share of the profits from the big studios.
This strike took a toll on films - famously forcing Daniel Craig to co-write Quantum of Solace on the fly with its director - and on the small screen as Breaking Bad's first season was reduced from nine episodes to seven. As many fans know, Jesse Pinkman was supposed to suffer a grisly death in one of these final unwritten episodes, but thanks to the strike, and Aaron Paul's performance, Vince Gilligan let Jesse live to see another day.
Another aspect of the show that benefited from shortening the debut season was Walter White's arc which over just nine episodes would have seen him dramatically transform into the cool blooded Heisenberg. As Vince Gilligan confessed "[the final two episodes] would have taken the characters into a hugely different realm than that they were already in, and it would have been a hard thing to come back from, coming into season two." While Walter White had admittedly murdered Krazy-8 with a bike lock we still sympathised with him to some extent but if he had committed another horrific act an audience may have not been so forgiving.