Television series

Better Call Saul

Name: Better Call Saul
Genre: Drama, Crime, Legal
Released: 2015
Cast: Bob Odenkirk, Jonathan Banks, Rhea Seehorn, Patrick Fabian, Michael Mando

Better Call Saul is the rare prequel that outgrows its source, tracing con-man-turned-lawyer Jimmy McGill's slow slide into Saul Goodman with a patience Breaking Bad never had room for. It's slower, sadder, and funnier than you'd expect given how it ends — a tragedy told in close-up, about a man talking himself into ruin one clever argument at a time.

TVMaze rating

8.6

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Breaking Bad2008

The show BCS is prequel to, from the same creators, tracking the same moral rot at a faster, louder pace. Walter White's transformation is the mirror image of Jimmy's — ambition curdling into monstrosity in real time.

But You may already know how it ends, and the shock value that made it a phenomenon has been endlessly imitated since.

The Wire2002

David Simon's Baltimore epic trades one lawyer's slow fall for an entire city's, but the patience is identical: institutions and people corrupting each other in exhausting, novelistic detail.

But Five dense, slow-building seasons with unfamiliar faces demand real commitment; it rewards patience more than casual viewing ever will.

Fargo2014

Noah Hawley's anthology stretches Coen-brothers noir into seasons of ordinary Midwesterners undone by one bad decision, with the same wit-laced dread and doomed charm BCS specializes in.

But Each season resets cast and story from scratch, so the investment you build never carries forward — some find that frustrating.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

BoJack Horseman2014

Same engine as Jimmy McGill: a genuinely talented person who understands exactly what's wrong with him and chooses the destructive path anyway, charm working as both weapon and defense.

An animated sitcom about a washed-up sitcom horse becomes, somehow, one of television's most devastating studies of self-sabotage — funny until it isn't, and then unbearably honest.

But It's a cartoon with talking animals and sitcom parody wrapped around real depression and addiction; the tonal mismatch puts people off entirely.

Ozark2017

A financial planner launders cartel money and drags his family into the mess — the same slow-motion moral collapse, the same fascination with the mechanics of getting away with it.

But It's colder and less funny than BCS, and the family melodrama can feel soapier than the crime plotting deserves.

Justified2010

Elmore Leonard's rhythms, a magnetic lawman-outlaw dynamic, and dialogue sharp enough to shave with — this scratches the same itch for great talkers doing terrible things beautifully.

But Early seasons lean episodic and case-of-the-week, looser and less tightly serialized than BCS's patient plotting.

The Good Wife2009

A legal drama that treats casework like chess and character like the real plot, with moral compromise creeping in year by year — a slow burn BCS fans will recognize instantly.

But It's a network procedural at heart, with more case-of-the-week filler than BCS's tighter, more novelistic pacing.

Damages2007

Glenn Close is terrifying as a litigator who'll ruin anyone to win, and the fractured timeline builds the same dread BCS creates by showing you the ending before the beginning.

But The chronology-scrambling structure can feel gimmicky, and later seasons lose the tight focus of the first.

Barry2018

A hitman trying to become an actor is a stranger premise than Jimmy's, but the tonal high-wire act — comedy curdling into violence without warning — is the same trick, done brilliantly.

But The tonal swings are more extreme and the violence more sudden; the whiplash exhausts some viewers rather than exhilarating them.

Goliath2016

Billy Bob Thornton plays a washed-up lawyer clawing back against his old firm — messier and pulpier than BCS, but built from the same DNA of squandered talent and wounded pride.

But It's uneven across seasons and never approaches BCS's level of craft; think lesser cousin, not equal.

Sweet Smell of Success1957

This is where Jimmy McGill's ancestor lives — a fast-talking operator whose gift for persuasion is also the thing hollowing him out, decades before Saul Goodman had a name.

A ruthless press agent flatters, blackmails and lies his way through 1950s Manhattan in this black-and-white noir, all rapid-fire dialogue and moral vertigo — a masterclass in charm as weapon.

But It's 60-plus years old, monochrome, and its wall-to-wall dialogue and jazz-age slang take a scene or two to adjust to.

Soupçons2004

Where BCS invents a lawyer talking himself into and out of trouble, this shows you a real one doing exactly that — persuasion as craft, ambiguity as the whole point.

A real murder trial, a real defense lawyer building his case in real time, filmed over years with unnerving access — the actual mechanics of legal strategy BCS dramatizes, minus the fiction.

But It's a slow, unresolved documentary about an ambiguous real crime; anyone wanting tidy answers or dramatic flourish will be frustrated.