Is Better Call Saul Worth Watching?
Short answer: Yes. It is the rare prequel that surpasses the original.
What you should know going in
AMC, six seasons, 63 episodes (2015-2022). Created by Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould. The show traces Jimmy McGill's transformation into Saul Goodman, the criminal lawyer who would later defend Walter White in Breaking Bad. Across the six seasons, the show moves from Jimmy's early days at his brother Chuck's law firm to the events that immediately precede Breaking Bad.
Bob Odenkirk, Rhea Seehorn, Jonathan Banks, Giancarlo Esposito, Michael McKean, Patrick Fabian. The cinematography is patient and the editing rhythms are unusually slow for prestige TV. The show treats the prequel format as a structural argument about inevitability.
The case for
Cognitive Stimulation (45/50): Better Call Saul's structural argument is that character transformation is not a decision but an accretion of small surrenders. The show refuses to identify a single moment when Jimmy becomes Saul. Instead, the viewer is asked to integrate dozens of small structural cues across six seasons.
Craft & Quality (45/50): The cinematography (Marshall Adams, Arthur Albert, Paul Donachie) is consistently the strongest of any AMC prestige drama. The Season 6 episode 'Plan and Execution' is one of the most-structurally-precise hours of TV ever made. The show's commitment to letting silence carry argument is rare in dialogue-heavy prestige TV.
Educational Value (41/50): The show is the rare legal drama that takes the actual mechanics of law practice as its structural subject. The elder-law subplots, the document-production sequences, the courtroom maneuvering, all are researched to a degree few legal dramas attempt.
The case against
The pacing is genuinely deliberate. Season 1 takes seven episodes to find its register. Viewers conditioned by Breaking Bad's faster momentum will need to recalibrate.
The Mike Ehrmantraut subplots in Seasons 2-3 are structurally separate from the Jimmy/Kim narrative, and the show takes time to integrate them. Some viewers find the parallel-narrative structure disorienting.
The show is committed to making the viewer love Kim Wexler before the structural argument requires her exit. Viewers who become attached find the structural commitment painful.
The methodology verdict
On the TVI rubric, Better Call Saul scores 171 (Masterclass tier). The structural commitment to transformation-as-accretion, the cinematography's precision, the willingness to let silence carry argument, and the rigor of the legal mechanics all earn the score.
Worth watching if: you are willing to commit to six seasons, willing to sit with deliberate pacing, and willing to engage with the show's argument at the series scale rather than the episode scale.
Not worth watching if: you need fast plot momentum. Better Call Saul rewards patience to a degree few prestige dramas do.
Frequently asked
What is Better Call Saul's IQ Score on TV Intelligentsia?
Better Call Saul scores 171 out of 200 (Masterclass tier). Cognitive Stimulation: 45/50. Educational Value: 41/50. Craft & Quality: 45/50. The structural commitment to transformation-as-accretion and the cinematography's precision are the primary drivers.
Do I need to watch Breaking Bad first?
Not strictly. Better Call Saul is constructed to be legible on its own terms. Breaking Bad viewers will recognize specific structural payoffs that non-viewers will not, but the show stands independently.
How long is Better Call Saul?
Six seasons (2015-2022), 63 episodes total. Runtime is approximately 45-50 minutes per episode. Total commitment is approximately 50 hours.
Is Better Call Saul better than Breaking Bad?
Both shows score in the same tier on the TVI rubric (Masterclass). Better Call Saul rewards patience to a degree Breaking Bad does not require, and its structural commitment to transformation-as-accretion is arguably more rigorous than Breaking Bad's transformation-as-decision argument.
TV Intelligentsia scores every major series on a published methodology rubric. IQ Score is a content rating, not an intelligence measurement.
See the full Better Call Saul score breakdown