In One Chart, Here's How Breaking Bad Was Like No Other Show That Came Before It

Breaking Bad, which comes to a conclusion tonight, is already considered one of the best television shows ever made.

Assuming they stick the landing, tonight will go down as the conclusion to a show that has earned its place in history.

The thing is, even stacked against the shows often considered to be all-time greats, Breaking Bad still crushes it.

Two weeks ago, the episode Ozymandias earned an perfect 10.0 out of 10 on the website IMDB. IMDB lets users put in ratings for every TV show, and so using that data we can a great sense of what shows, seasons, and episodes viewers actually like.

Earlier this month we looked at how different shows evolved by looking at how their average seasonal IMDB episode rating changed over time. Basically what we did is look at the shows average episode rating each season, and then plot said ratings on a chart.

Among the great TV shows, Breaking Bad stood alone as the show that has gotten better and better as the seasons go on, the show that still hasn't peaked!

Here's the chart of Breaking Bad's performance, with the three episodes that since we last published it added in. The trend line is virtually uninterrupted up.

Outstanding.

Compare that to some shows already considered -- if not the best ever -- historic nonetheless. Notice how for each of them, the shows peaked at some point: