David Bianculli’s thoughts on last night’s finale: If you don’t want to hear details, especially about last night’s season finale of Breaking Bad, turn away from this website now. But I consider it fair game to talk in detail about TV shows once they’ve been televised — especially if they’re doing interesting enough work to be saluted for it. [more]

You take Mr. Chips and turn him into Scarface.

— Vince Gilligan’s original pitch to AMC for Breaking Bad. [complete interview here]

On today’s Fresh Air, actor Aaron Paul talks about the evolution of his character Jesse Pinkman on AMC’s Breaking Bad: “But the entire second season, the entire third season, I thought that Jesse could be a goner at any moment because there’s many things that this character could screw up on, and he could definitely meet his deathbed at any moment.” [also series creator Vince Gilligan]

Interviewer: The first season of Breaking Bad was obviously shortened by the writers’ strike. And you said that you had originally intended to kill off a character in episode nine but you only got to episode seven. […] Who were you going to kill off?
Vince: I was going to kill off this gentleman right here [points to Aaron].
Aaron: Thank God for the writers’ strike. Thank you writers! I love you. Wow.
Bryan: Eh, you should’ve done it.

Today: Vince Gilligan, Aaron Paul. Previously: Bryan Cranston.

Bryan Cranston on Fresh Air. Monday: Vince Gilligan, Aaron Paul.