Excellence on TV: Breaking Bad returns

 Breaking Bad, Sundays at 10pm, AMC

For all those who bemoan the fact that there's nothing good on TV, it's put-up or shut-up time. We're telling you -- start watching Breaking Bad or stop the whining.

The Emmy Award-winning show, about a high school chemistry teacher with lung cancer who decides he must start cooking crystal meth to earn money for his family, is definitely one of the best dramas ever on television. It's not on HBO, where you might expect it, it's on basic cable (AMC). And it's better than anything on HBO or Showtime right now. 

It's raw, it's intense, and it's sometimes hard to watch. But it's excellent television.

Bryan Cranston's lead character, Walt White, is a little worse for wear after everything that went down in the first season (due to his health and also his adventures in the drug trade), but he's still cooking, and more determined than ever to make sure he leaves his family in decent financial shape.

$737,000 is what Walt figures he needs for his family -- rougly 11 more drug deals. Then he can walk away. But it's not helping that his brother-in-law is a DEA agent, nor that the dealer he sells to is a murdering psychopath (Raymond Cruz, who also plays Lt Sanchez on The Closer).

Cranston won the Emmy last year for his work on Breaking Bad, and he directs the season opener, which premieres Sunday night at 10pm on AMC. (AMC is also home to the excellent Mad Men series.)

And if you missed Season 1, you're in luck: AMC is showing a Breaking Bad marathon starting tonight at 8pm. The AMC website also posted five original 3-to-5-minute "Minisodes."