TV is the New Reading

Cable premieres darken the dial

‘Breaking Bad,’ ‘Justified’ come on strong

Skylar survived.

In the second season finale of AMC’s “Breaking Bad,” there was some question as to whether Walt’s wife and infant daughter were aboard a plane that crashed over Albuquerque. While her plane was in the air at the time, however, it was not involved in the crash.

What she was doing on the plane was getting away from Walt, after he showed her a stash of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Let’s back up. Walt is a high school chemistry teacher suffering from lung cancer, currently in remission. However, a few months ago the picture was darker. He didn’t think he would survive more than a few months and he’d leave his family destitute with a mountain of medical debt. He was scared beyond reason.

He saw a report where a local drug bust brought in $20,000. He figured he could produce a more chemically perfect methamphetamine, charge a premium price and put together enough money to provide security for his family.

As it turns out, he was capable of cooking up some glass-grade crystal meth. But he needed distribution, so he teamed up with a small-time dealer and former student of his, Jesse Pinkman. As season three begins, Jesse’s dealing with the loss of his girlfriend to a drug overdose, and one session in rehab later, has accepted that he is a bad guy. Walt is still trying to have it both ways – yes, he manufactures socially erosive, destructive and addictive drugs, but only to provide for his family.

That’s what he keeps telling himself, anyway, although together they expanded the meth market through the southwestern United States -- and right under the nose of his drug enforcement agent brother-in-law. Through many harrowing trials and run-ins with truly unsavory characters, Walt has managed to compile half a million dollars -- impressive, but $200,000 short of what he anticipated would cover at least 18 years of his infant daughter’s life.

When he told his wife about it, she ran straight to a divorce lawyer. Walt is naturally upset. He made the money for his family’s survival and now he could be losing his family. Also, he turned down a $3 million job from a major player in the drug trade, which I imagine might have consequences. Not to mention a couple of Mexican assassins making the trip north to end him.

Season three of “Breaking Bad” is off to a typically dark start, airing Sundays at 9 p.m. on AMC.

‘Justified’

I’m less drawn in by this one than I thought I’d be from the previews.

“Justified” is a new FX series based on characters created by Elmore Leonard. In “Justified,” a U.S. marshal, Rayland Givens, returns to the hill country of eastern Kentucky to ... well ...

It’s hard to say he’s there to keep the peace. He’s got his own ideas about justice and slips comfortably back and forth between light and shadow in dealing with unsavory types. He got himself targeted by the bad guys in his southern Florida post, which got him booted back to mining country, his home town in Harlan County.

It’s a cop drama with a dark Southern flavor. The pilot episode included white supremacist imagery, violent gunplay and the kind of seedy characters you might anticipate in a place of relative lawlessness and an FX drama.

Compared to another cable series regarding U.S. marshals -- Mary McCormack’s “In Plain Sight” on USA -- it’s much darker. That doesn’t necessarily mean more compelling. Givens’ return to this place of moral ambivalence had an uneven opening, with his best friend the criminal and breaking into his ex-wife’s house.

The things he does are unexpected. They’re exciting and eye-catching, but they’re also the sort of things that statistically would’ve gotten him killed many times over by now, so it’s more than a little unrealistic.

That said, it was also the pilot episode and had a lot of groundwork to cover, so as it continues and as we get to meet these characters a little more, the situations might move into more compelling territory.

“Justified” airs Tuesdays at 9 p.m. on FX.

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