Breaking Bad Creator Vince Gilligan's New TV Series Compared to The Twilight Zone

Vince Gilligan is about to enter another dimension of his career. The four-time Emmy-winning Breaking Bad creator confirmed spinoff Better Call Saul, which he co-created with showrunner Peter Gould, will end the Bad Universe that also spawned the Gilligan-directed El Camino movie. Gilligan will soon pitch his next original series, an as-yet-unrevealed new idea reportedly comparable to The Twilight Zone. It's unclear whether the series, which is being set up with Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul studio Sony Pictures Television as producers, is an anthology like the genre-twisting Twilight Zone. 

The new series is said to harken back to Gilligan's tenure on sci-fi drama The X-Files, where he served as a writer, producer, and director before co-creating the short-lived spinoff series The Lone Gunmen. According to Deadline, Gilligan's show is like his episodes of X-Files in that it explores "the human condition" and "similar themes of bending reality while holding a mirror to humanity." 

But unlike The X-Files, the new series is "set in our world while putting a tweak on it." Described as a "blended, grounded genre drama" compared to The Twilight Zone, the project is not a morality tale but will infuse drama with humor while "focusing on people and exploring the human condition in an unexpected, surprising way." 

"You can't keep putting all your money on red 21. I feel like we probably pushed it doing a spinoff to Breaking Bad [but] I could not be more happy with the results," Gilligan said Wednesday during AMC's virtual Television Critics Association panel. "Then I did El Camino and I'm very proud of that too. But I think I'm starting to sense you've got to know when to leave the party, you don't want to be the guy with a lampshade on your head." 

Gilligan added: "I don't have any plans right now to do anything more in this universe. I know I probably gave the same answer at the end of Breaking Bad. I gotta prove to myself that I got something else in me. I'm not a one-trick pony, that's what I'm hoping." 

In a previous interview with AMC.com, Gilligan said the new show is a departure from his nearly 15-year tenure in the Breaking Bad Universe, which will end with Saul's series finale (titled "Saul Gone") August 15 on AMC. 

"I'm going to be pitching it soon and it could not be more different than Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, and I'm hoping it sells and I'm hoping people like it," Gilligan said. "You just never know, but I'd be very excited to see it get made."

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