Earlier I wrote "on set." True, this is the fourth time, but we're now complaining how people "summarily ignored" parts of posts. I find that a particularly brazen complaint, given that "on set" (yes! the fifth time I've written it!) somehow gets gobbleygook about moving places.
I've seen it every time you've posted it, thanks. A quick use of Google might have informed you that "on set" is used pretty interchangeably during production to refer to being at the site of filming, whether it be a location or a sound stage. I was understandably confused. However, you did notice that I didn't bring up moving from location to location again after you clarified your terms, didn't you?
What's funny is that you accuse me of being a "company man," yet you're the one who is taking the studio position -- that TV shows take too long, and therefore cost too much, to produce.
Two of the things I really enjoyed from "Box Cutter," in fact, were those long tracking shots photographed from directly overhead, which filled the proceedings with a lot more dread, and those extreme close-ups, almost abstract in their look, of the blood flowing on the floor. And all I could think about during those instances was how they would be the first thing I would cut if I wanted to shrink the production schedule.
If you'd like to see what kind of television more "efficient" management produces, watch any number of television shows that were produced by Universal's television division when they were first taken over by MCA in 1958. I suppose if you don't mind unimaginative cinematography and every "location" being on the backlot, then it might not be so bad. But to my eyes, those productions are formulaic and boring as hell.
Of course, if you want to propose that a program like
Breaking Bad could continue its current level of quality with that kind of management, I don't buy your premise. You seem to be operating under the assumption that when production goes over-schedule into 13, 14, 15, even 16-hour days, it's because the people in charge are just diddling around. That's just not the case.
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In regards to the season premiere, I thought it was terrific. The way the camera lingered on Victor, it was pretty evident that he was doomed once he let himself be seen at the crime scene, but the means of his death were still quite shocking, not to mention violent. I'm surprised that amount of blood is allowed outside of Premium Cable.
Really, the only thing that bothered me (and it's almost completely trivial) was Anna Gunn's appearance. Obviously, a year has occurred between production of "Full Measure" and "Box Cutter," but it makes it a little harder to suspend my disbelief that the two episodes occur mere hours apart when a performer's appearance changes. One columnist speculated that she had cosmetic surgery over the hiatus, and I thought she was either recently pregnant (the internet disproved that) or had just gained a little weight. Whatever it is, something looked a little "off," for lack of a better word. Of course, a quick trip to IMDB has people complaining about her change in appearance between seasons two and three, something I didn't even notice, so maybe it's nothing.
