Breaking Bad

If you can’t think of a single thing for your second cousin thrice removed, why not look for inspiration in people you might know a little bit better…

A finale, then, is a touchy affair, as the emotional stability of a show’s entire fandom rests in the palms of the showrunners’ hands. And if you think I’m exaggerating, just ask a Game of Thrones fan what they thought of The Iron Throne.

That was an extreme case but it did prove the power of a finale to tarnish a show’s legacy (although House of the Dragon is so far doing some good damage limitation). Here, however, we take a look at the ones who secured theirs.

Needless to say, the SPOILERS abound.

A character study of another anti-hero in the Bad universe, crooked lawyer Saul Goodman (played by Bob Odenkirk), Better Call Saul is a firm adherent of the “show, don’t tell” philosophy. Every shot brims with meaning and begs for deconstruction.

AMC’s official Better Call Saul Insider Podcast does just that, as series editors turned podcast presenters Chris McCaleb and Kelley Dixon consult the heads of the various production departments to find out just how each episode came together. As one reviewer on Apple put it: it’s a film school of a podcast.

Sky has released a first look trailer for new legal thriller, Your Honor, starring Breaking Bad’s Bryan Cranston.

Cranston stars as Michael Desiato, a reputed New Orleans judge who breaks bad in order to protect his teenage son Adam (Hunter Doohan) after he gets involved in a hit-and-run.

Unfortunately for them, the victim just happens to be the son of Jimmy Baxter (Michael Stuhlbarg), the head of the most vicious crime family in the city.

Series binging over weekly releases has become the new norm, and brand new, high-quality TV content seems to be in endless supply.

The competition for viewers’ attention has intensified tenfold, and the leading broadcasters have risen to the challenge.

At the beginning of a new decade, we look back at some of the most memorable performances and series of the last ten years.

Josh Sapan was welcomed as “the real deal, one of the greats of American cable and the television industry” by his interviewer, Tim Davie. Not only that, the audience learned that Sapan was cut from a different cloth to most US TV executives because he understood British humour.

That’s germane because Sapan, President and CEO of AMC Networks, landed a 49.9% stake in BBC America (for $200m) in October 2014.

“We are cousins of the BBC, married into the family, a delight for me,” said the donnish-looking, New York-based cable veteran.

Pay-TV platform BT TV is hoping that an unfolding zombie apocalypse will help it bite out a bigger share of a competitive UK market dominated by Sky. Fear the Walking Dead, the much-­anticipated spin-off show of US flesh-­eating drama the Walking Dead, is airing exclusively on BT TV as the flagship drama for the first AMC-branded channel in the UK.

It is part of a wider deal struck in June between US cable operator AMC Networks and BT TV.

RTS Futures assembled a panel of pioneers for its sold-out event at London's Hospital Club in late April, "I made it in... digital". An enthusiastic, youthful audience was eager to learn from their experiences of working at the cutting edge of new media. It learnt, perhaps surprisingly, that television – the dancing dad at an achingly hip party – still has a big role to play in the digital age.

AMC Networks President and CEO Josh Sapan lays claim to having the world’s largest collection of antique lightning rods. "They’re architectural and a form of industrial art. I just got captivated by them," he explains.

One or two of them can be found lying around his office on Penn Plaza, a few blocks from the Empire State Building, alongside examples of another passion. This is his collection of panoramic photographs of people and places from the last century.