While Gilligan was certainly entitled to a nice, long hiatus after wrapping one of the greatest TV shows in history, the Breaking Bad creator was back at work on Saul barely a month later. As he told me,

“It’s like that old thing about if the horse throws you, you’ve got to get back up on the horse or otherwise you’re never going to ride it again,” says Gilligan. “Breaking Bad was so beyond any wildest dreams I could’ve imagined that if I’d had more time to sit on my hands and contemplate it, I’d probably sit around and double- and triple-guess every subsequent new idea I had for a program and say, ‘You know what, it’s not as good as Breaking Bad; I’d better wait for something that is as good.’ Suddenly, it’s 15 years later and it’s like, ‘People magazine has photos of the old guy who used to do Breaking Bad. Whatever happened to him?’ It’s better to get back up on the horse.”

It was such a pleasure speaking with Gilligan and Gould, and that interview is packed with terrific detail from them. In even better news, I’m happy (and relieved) to report that Better Call Saul is no Joey: it’s much more ambitious and rewarding, and is a worthy companion to Breaking Bad.

Vince Gilligan on Ending ‘Breaking Bad’ and the Perils of Spinning Off ‘Better Call Saul’

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Ever since Breaking Bad went off the air, AMC has been desperately searching for the next Breaking Bad. Now the network hopes it has found it…with their new Breaking Bad prequel, Better Call Saul, which paneled today at winter press tour.

As I wrote at Adweek, Vince Gilligan, the creator of both Breaking Bad and its spinoff, says the sky’s the limit when it comes to Breaking Bad characters popping up on Better Call Saul — well, everyone except Walter White (Bryan Cranston) and Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul).

“Walt and Jesse don’t show up in Season 1. But everything else is on the table,” co-creator Peter Gould told reporters at today’s press event. “We want this thing to stand on its own.” (Also, as the AMC panel pointed out, Jesse Pinkman would have been in middle school during Better Call Saul’s first season.)

Before introducing the Better Call Saul panel, AMC president Charlie Collier talked about the “dramatic change” facing in the network, and why AMC is now operating in “a Live + 365 environment” (do advertisers know?).

No, Walter and Jesse Won’t Be in ‘Better Call Saul.’ But Anyone Else Could Turn Up

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Just nine months ago, USA President Chris McCumber was talking to me about his network’s push into comedy, and preaching patience. Looks like his patience has worn thin, because USA announced that it is retreating from comedy and refocusing on drama, while AMC has pulled the plug on almost its entire reality slate as it, too, opts to concentrate on what it does best. As I explained at Quartz,

Those surprising moves were in part explained by a Wall Street Journal report that the US top 40 most widely distributed cable channels in 2010—USA and AMC included—have lost an average of 3.2 million subscribers, or more than 3% of their distribution, during the last four years, as consumers have starting “shaving the cord” by opting for smaller, cheaper bundles of channels.

Intent on not being shaved out of existence, networks are refocusing on keeping their core audiences happy, rather than trying and attract new viewers. “In an environment of exploding content options for viewers,” AMC said in explaining its decision, “we have decided to make scripted programming our priority.”

Both networks damaged their core business by taking their eye off the ball, and their sudden retrenching should also be a red flag for E! and Bravo, which are both branching into scripted series for the first time.

Cable networks will save themselves by focusing on what they do best 

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After I’d recovered from last night’s riveting Breaking Bad series finale, I finished up this Quartz story about the daunting task ahead of AMC:

But despite the stellar ratings, AMC is now in the same position HBO found itself after The Sopranos finale aired back in 2007. With no other clear-cut heirs to Tony Soprano’s throne, the network stumbled for a couple years (with poorly-received shows such as John From Cincinnati, Hung and How to Make it in America) before finally bouncing back with hits such as Game of Thrones and critically-acclaimed series such as Girls, Veep, Boardwalk Empire and The Newsroom.

With Breaking Bad now completed and its other media darling, Mad Men, about to start its final season (more on that later), AMC has hit a similar run of bad luck.

I have my concerns about AMC’s “everything old is new again” approach to its programming slate. We’ll have to see if they can avoid HBO’s post-Sopranos funk.

Now that ‘Breaking Bad’ is over, AMC looks to break good with another show

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