The other night I was at a friend’s playing a board game. While the monthly get together was attended by regulars, there were quite a few fresh faces, and I tried to make small talk to get to know them better.

Has anyone been watching Breaking Bad? I asked.

Very quickly, a few people bubbled over with comments on how much they liked the cable show, sharing personal tales of Breaking Bad watching marathons while they were sick or weren’t working. (I had to laugh at the current model of television where few people watch their favorite shows when they are aired but rather schedule viewings to fit in with their calendars.)

I only started subscribing to cable a couple years ago, well after 2008 when Breaking Bad was introduced, and only very recently was introduced to the perks of Netflix streaming. Like a teenager gifted with his first smart phone, I get almost giddy with the thought of returning again and again to characters I’ve been getting to know and plot twists I could not have imagined.

I have to wonder what’s so special about this experience of becoming a fan of a particular show.  In general,  I don’t care for TV very much. I have to come back to the idea of story and shared experience.

It’s funny how a TV drama series can make me want to spend hours on my couch obsessed with the complications or unraveling of someone’s life; fictional characters at that. Why should I care?

Certainly the serial format has something to do with this. I love the way each episode has a focus and a dramatic arc, yet always provides some tension to fuel my anticipation for what’s coming next.

I can appreciate the production values of serial television. They use amazing actors and have incredible scripts.  Creators, consultants and producers go to great lengths to give a series an authentic feel through costuming, location-shooting, fact-checking.  The tricks of chemistry or details of anatomy or use of legalese in other TV dramas satisfy my desire to know someone else’s experience.  These shows feel very real to me even though the real world they portray is not one I know.

I love how these TV dramas have spawned discussion and connections between seemingly unrelated people; how grandmothers from New Jersey and California Valley Girls can talk about Downton Abbey, how a retired barber and a grunged out gamer could carry on an animated dialogue on what character from The Sopranos is most likely to get whacked before the end of a season.

Yet, I think my attraction to Breaking Bad or Mad Men, or The Wire is the magic of story itself.  It seems that each generation has stories that speak to them or capture their imagination. In other countries, other eras, maybe people gathered around a campfire to tell or act out or dance a story, and today we stream productions of stories to fit our individual schedules.  There is a personal aspect and a communal aspect to each story.  A good story almost always makes us think about ourselves. Our personal experience of a story almost always begs to be shared with others.

Stories start with characters that are heroic and flawed – like we all are. They deal with questions of good and bad, hope and hopelessness, conflict and peace. Stories make impressions on us over time.  We can be changed by stories. We may also perceive a story differently at different times in our lives.

In life, it seems, we experience a natural tension between continuation and resolution. We want our stories to have happy endings. We also don’t want a good story to end.  This seems to require some level of conflict.

I couldn’t have predicted being concerned with the evolution of Breaking Bad’s lead character, Walter White, a high school chemistry teacher who becomes a meth manufacturer and drug kingpin after a cancer diagnosis, but I have become enthralled. I spoke with my friend in California recently, also a big fan.  She  explained that Walter actually BECOMES cancer as he starts ruining the lives of people around him.  What a concept!

Any time you can see the universal in something particular, it’s no small thing.