In his December 11 piece, King ranked the program as the best on TV and gushed over the "brilliant, terrifying, shocking" show. In a unique choice, he also praised Rachel Maddow as "insightful" and "pretty in a no-nonsense way."
Breaking Bad stars Bryan Cranston as a high school chemistry teacher with lung cancer who begins selling methamphetamine. King cooed that the program "started as an indictment of the drug culture and America’s shoddy treatment of those who fall victim to catastrophic illnesses..."
In the same article, King touted Maddow as having one of the best programs on television, rhapsodizing, "It doesn’t hurt that she’s pretty in a no-nonsense way."
King deemed The Rachel Maddow Show as the eighth best on TV and gushed, "She’s smart, amusing, and willing to look at both sides of political arguments."
The novelist didn’t give an example of the stridently left-wing Maddow looking "at both sides." (It’s true that Maddow, unlike Keith Olbermann, will sometimes have right-leaning guests. But, she also was one of the first to repeat the false smears about Rush Limbaugh extolling the assassin of Martin Luther King.)
The popular author began, "As Keith Olbermann inflates into a dirigible of outrage (not without reason), Maddow grows more insightful."
The transcript of King’s review of Breaking bad can be found below:
1. Breaking Bad
The show I called the best series of 2008 has now become the best of the 21st century. Bryan Cranston’s fierce portrayal of Everyman teacher/schlub Walter White continues to amaze and Aaron Paul shines as Jesse Pinkman, a sorcerer’s apprentice who gets sucked into a deadly partnership. Series creator Vince Gilligan has opened a window on a world where planes fall from the sky and meth tweakers are crushed beneath stolen ATMs. BB is brilliant, terrifying, shocking, and sometimes screamingly funny. What started as an indictment of the drug culture and America’s shoddy treatment of those who fall victim to catastrophic illnesses has morphed into an examination of the American dream itself: shiny and addictive on top, hollow at the core. And dark. Very dark.
