Throughout his prolific career, Stephen King has developed nuanced views on television's storytelling potential, shaped partly by watching numerous adaptations of his own work reach the screen with mixed results. He has come to appreciate episodic series' structural advantages in exploring character development, leading him to favour productions that build compelling personalities and escalating psychological tension over visual spectacle.

In a 2014 Rolling Stone interview, King identified Breaking Bad as the century's most accomplished television series, pointing specifically to its fearless opening moment as evidence of its creative integrity. The unconventional choice to frame the protagonist in unglamorous, everyday circumstances demonstrated to him that the show's creators possessed the artistic confidence necessary to transcend conventional heroic archetypes and construct a genuinely subversive narrative.