Better Call Saul is a reminder of the benefits of TV that slows down

Salon.com

"Before people came up with a term for shows like Better Call Saul, there was a short-lived effort to attach the 'Slow TV' label to any show that emphasized marinating the audience in character development and mood," says Melanie McFarland. "Multiple episodes might pass before 'anything happens' – which is to say the writers might wait for several installments to turn up the flames, whether that heat takes the form of scandal, betrayal, swift reversals of fortune or the reliable trigger of violence. Nowadays when we consider shows like that, they fall under the label of Prestige TV. Mentioning that term undoubtedly recalls the Divine Quartet of The Wire, The Sopranos, Mad Men and Breaking Bad, the show that originated Bob Odenkirk's Saul Goodman. All these shows set the standard for capitalizing on audacious cinematography and conscientiously economic writing to evoke tonal details, inviting audiences to contemplate the smallest flourishes that go into the grand payoffs. Other series tried channeling this slow-burn approach but we mention them far less frequently, in the same way that some "slow food" recipes are in fact examples of entirely average cooking."

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• Why co-creator Peter Gould revealed Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul will appear in Better Call Saul's final season: "I’m going to be incredibly frank with you," he tells The Hollywood Reporter. "Vince (Gilligan) and I talked about it, and we both thought that we’d been cagey for long enough. Don’t forget that Aaron and Bryan also have to keep this under their lid and everybody asks them about it, and it just felt like the right moment to let the cat out of the bag, because for better or for worse, I have to say that there are so many other surprises and left turns this season that I kind of wanted to take that one off the table."
• Better Call Saul hired a dance troupe for its Season 6 opening scene: “(Director) Michael (Morris) and our first AD Rich Sickler had this idea about using a dance troupe for that sequence," says Marshall Adams, the cinematographer for the "Wine and Roses" premiere. "So those are all members of a single dance troupe and they basically were keeping time. We rehearsed for an entire Sunday, getting all of those shots exactly right before the whole crew came in on Monday, and we started actually doing it on Monday and Tuesday. They were laid out to the beat, to the moment, just exactly how Michael wanted them."
• Peter Gould and director Michael Morris break down the opening: "This season is structured very differently from our other seasons in ways that will become quickly apparent," says Gould in explaining why the season premiere opening was switched up from the previous five seasons. "Actually, they will become apparent as you go. It felt right to change things up because, of course, for the other five seasons at the beginning of the season, you see Gene Takovic, the Cinnabon manager. In this case, we thought we’d do something a little bit different. This just really appealed to us as we started the season. I think it’s going to have resonances that go beyond what’s obvious right now."
• In the Season 6 premiere, Better Call Saul sticks to its proverbial guns as a dread-inducing slow burn to begin the final season
• “Wine and Roses" still finds a way to situate viewers in a post-Breaking Bad world
• Rhea Seehorn, co-creator Peter Gould and episode co-writer Thomas Schnauz explain how the final scene in the season premiere came together
• Michael Mando: "I did every stunt in all those episodes except for two..."