As “Breaking Bad” headed into its planning, pre-production phase at full force, Vince Gilligan realized he had a problem. The scripts for the first season wouldn’t be ready by the scheduled date, which would result in a halted production that could have costly effects. He told Esquire that while he was attending to his showrunner duties on location, his talented team of writers were attempting to work through the remaining episodes in Los Angeles, but were still coming up short.
In an ironic stroke of luck, the beginning of the Writer’s Strike gave them the unanticipated break they desperately needed. At Esquire, Gilligan divulged, “At just about the time we would have had to shut down for lack of scripts, which in those early days might well have been a death knell for the series, the WGA went on strike, thus saving my a**, for which I will be forever grateful.” This gave the crew a mandatory stopping point that doubled as a chance to catch their breath. It even saved the show from cutting into production costs or falling behind schedule, which could’ve put the future success of “Breaking Bad” in jeopardy.
Who would’ve guessed that two seemingly separate events would have such an intricate connection? Thankfully, the timing worked out perfectly and gifted the world the beloved and volatile series.