Vince Gilligan Knows 'Better Call Saul' Is A Risk

It's hard to tell exactly what the consensus for Breaking Bad spinoff prequel Better Call Saul is at this juncture, but that's probably for the best. After all, it hasn't even aired yet. But that's never stopped the masses from forming opinions, and right now those seem to be decidedly mixed between "It's by the people who did Breaking Bad, one of the best shows of all time!" and "...But what if it's bad?" It's alternately disconcerting and comforting, then, that Vince Gilligan shares both these hopes and these fears.

Gilligan recently took part in The Hollywood Reporter's annual drama showrunners roundtable and talked about the spinoff:

It opens you up to a lot of fears: Is this going to be Frasier or is this going to be After M.A.S.H? I don't know yet, I mean honest to God I don't know. If it's After M.A.S.H. rather than Frasier it won't be for a lack of hard work and wishful thinking and a lot of smart people doing their best, but 'til the world takes it, you know.

And it's certainly possible: The critically acclaimed shadow of Breaking Bad could crush the chances of a show intrinsically built off of something tonally different but set around the same (or similar characters) — or the show could just stink of its own accord. Or hell, it could be fantastic, and rebuild its own identity the way Frasier did. There's really only one way to know, and that's to wait and see.