DRAMA
Breaking Bad Vs. Game of Thrones
While the national allegiance of
Game of Thrones can be argued, I'm counting it among Britain's arsenal due to the fact that most of the cast and crew are British, and the fact that it's mostly filmed in Northern Ireland, to boot. Deal with it. Both of these shows are absolutely huge in both America and Britain. Pretty much everyone with a television set has heard of both of them, and when a major development or shock happens in either, as they often do, you can be damn sure you'll hear about it the next day in work or school. There's a reason for that. Both are bloody brilliant. As such, it's a tough task to choose between them.
Game of Thrones has absolutely fantastic sets and costumes, while
Breaking Bad does a sublime job of creating believable environments. Gus' lab, Jessie's house, the car wash, you get to truly know these places and connect with them, and moreover they all feel like real places that could exist in New Mexico. Story-wise,
Game of Thrones does a fantastic job of adapting George R R Martin's beloved works for the small screen, while even making them feel like big-screen material. The show is incredibly cinematic, which contrasts to
Breaking Bad's gritty realism. The show's premise, a chemistry teacher giving up his job to cook crystal meth, is admittedly a little out there. But the show-runners do a fantastic job of making the situations within incredibly believable. So far, there's very little between the two, so it's all going to have to come down to the characters.
Game of Thrones has great characters, Tyrion and Jon Snow in particular, but sometimes the show suffers from the fact there are so many. The narrative can become disjointed as a result of the story jumping all over the place, Winterfell one minute, the Stormlands the next, to follow them all. It's a minor issue, but I'm having to nitpick a little here.
Breaking Bad's characters, however, benefit from the fact that audiences can identify with them. Your average office worker can't relate to the plight of the White Walkers on Westeros, but they can relate to Walt striving desperately to provide for his family. So, the point goes to Breaking Bad, and to America, for having such in-depth, complicated, yet identifiable characters.