An Open Letter to Desperate Cable TV Networks Regarding How They May Profit, With Very Little Effort on Their Part, From the Disappointingly Premature Conclusion of "Breaking Bad"

Raise a glass to these suggestions, yo.

Dear cable television networks:

Now that Breaking Bad is entering the second leg of its fifth and final season, you have the unique chance to capitalize on the show’s phenomenal success and gain unprecedented market share. To achieve this, you’ll need to leverage the phonetic familiarity of the hit AMC series while reinforcing your own network’s singular brand. 

I know you’ve got lots of other stuff going on and are generally very busy TV people, so I have some suggestions. I’m on PayPal. You’re welcome.

Breaking Glad® (Discovery Channel)

Direct competitor to the Science Channel’s "How It's Made” demonstrates how uneven weight distribution affects the label’s well-regarded line of polyethylene products — i.e., the show’s producers cram garbage bags with as many Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift albums as possible and see how it goes.

Breaking Vlad (Syfy)

Original monster-disaster series starring a Gothic-attired Daphne Zuniga (read: regular Daphne Zuniga) and a garlic-draped Kate Upton, fighting the good fight against a Gary Oldman–Rugter Hauer–Jack Palance–Christopher Lee–Frank Langella–Gerard Butler–Leslie Nielsen–Klaus Kinski–Boris Karloff Lernaean Hydra. There might also be sharks.

Breaking 'Nads (SPIKE TV)

Reality series documenting post-presser hijinks in the Abedin-Weiner household. 

Breaking Chad (PBS)

Gripping 96-part Ken Burns documentary about the 2000 Florida presidential election season.

Breaking Chad II (TLC)

If the previously mentioned PBS series doesn’t resonate, commission Hilary Swank's ex and make him watch Parks and Rec with his mother as she continually (not continuously — she does take breaks) screams, "Why can't you be more like your brother Rob?!"

Breaking All-Clad (Food Network)

Therapy-reality participants work out anger-management issues on overpriced pots and pans at a local Williams-Sonoma.

Breaking Cads (BBC One)

I dunno. Something with John Cleese or Rowan Atkinson as the bad guy?

Breaking Brads (Lifetime)

Lovelorn ladies kidnap Pitt, Paisley, and Cooper and demand restitution for their perpetually broken hearts by making these players watch … a Lifetime marathon. This doesn't really make any sense. We're in the seventh-inning stretch here. Or  just a plain old stretch.

Breaking Brats (Bravo)

NYC Prep. Princesses: Long Island. The upcoming Ivy League Confidential. Time for a rich-kid comeuppance. You’ve got this one, Bravo. Own it.

Breaking Strats (The Weather Channel)

Kind of like a hip Storm Chasers, except these weather interceptors exclusively deal with hunting down sheetlike sky condensation resulting from nonconvective lift in the lower half of the troposphere. Niche programming that will nicely fill the void once Keeping Up With the Kardashians leaves the airwaves in 2014.

Breaking Ahmadinejad (Comedy Central)

This guy’s going to be out of a job soon and he’s hi-LAR-ious. Shooting a monkey into space? Denying the Holocaust? Holding hands with Chavez’s mom and prophesizing the late Venezuelan dictator’s resurrection? Comedy gold.

Breaking Bread (A&E)
An amalgam of the network's already hugely popular Hoarders and Intervention. Contestants are encouraged to overcome their '70s Dad-rock addiction by smashing their "I Want to Make It With You" and "Baby I'm-a-Want You" 45s with a ball-peen hammer.

Breaking Usted (Univisión)

A “tables-are-turned” contrarian grammarian documentary in which ESL students speak very loudly to dumb Americans to help them learn the functionality of second-person pronouns and accompanying verb conjugations.

Waking Dad (AMC)

The originating network’s only shot to cling to a piece of the pie by morphing Breaking Bad with its other hit show, the aggressively homophonic The Walking Dead. No idea what this would be about, but somehow a narcoleptic/zombie Tom Bosley would be involved. (Note: Consider cross-promotion with Breaking Glad®!)

Breaking Jihad (History Channel)

Series set in the Buffalo suburb of Lackawanna (hence the flat “a” in “jihaaad”) and boasting a name that serves as its own spoiler alert. The terrorists don’t win after all. Hurray!

Regards,

Jenn

If you want more of me on Twitter, @WarriorHauswife is where you should go.

Credit: Mark Davis/Getty Images