Better Call Saul
Abstract: Few aspects of television more typify the American commercial medium than the spinoff, a new program that emerges out of a successful series to sustain its brand past the original’s shelf life. However, contemporary television is marked by the rise of prestige drama, a mode of storytelling hailed as culturally legitimate and artistically groundbreaking that seems to refute the imitative logic of spinoffs. This essay analyzes spinoff Better Call Saul’s pilot episode to understand how the series managed to do the seemingly impossible: re-create the popular, critical, and creative successes of Breaking Bad by straddling the line between prestigious originality and commercial copying.
This essay may be found on page 13 of the printed volume.