Christmas

Sat Dec 19, 11pm-1am, Five USA

Imagine that, by some miraculous coup, you bag the rights to screen series two of what was, hands down, the best drama of 2008. What do you do? Do you screen a new episode every night of the week, making it incredibly hard to follow and thus eroding the patience of potential loyal viewers who may otherwise have tuned in for every episode? Of course not. Not unless you’re Five USA. Bad scheduling aside, it’s back to magnificent form for this drama about a downtrodden chemistry teacher with terminal cancer, who starts manufacturing crystal meth to provide for his family. This double bill picks up where we left off, with Walt and Jesse selling meth to Tuco in a car scrapping yard. Unfortunately, Tuco goes postal, kills a henchman and goes on the run from the cops with the two amateur meth makers. This time round it feels slightly bleaker than before, with the (hilarious) moments of humour taking a backseat to a dark, gripping, twisty narrative as Walt’s life starts to unravel. But it’s as stunning as ever. Now let’s just hope the viewing public beat bad scheduling to watch it. Feature continues