Breaking Bad Finale Sets Ratings Record With 10.3 Million Viewers

The final episode of Breaking Bad went out with a bang on Sunday night. The series attracted 10.3 million viewers for its final episode, making the final episode the most watched in the TV show’s five-year history.

The series, which follows Walter White, a former high school chemistry teacher who develops cancer and then becomes the world’s greatest meth cooker, became a sleeper hit after an initial slow start. The show’s success has been largely credited to streaming services such as Netflix, which allows for “binge” watching.

Bryan Cranston and Aaron Paul have become huge stars thanks to the show and many critics have called Breaking Bad the greatest cable TV show of all time.

Instead of the traditional 13 episode season for an AMC series, Breaking Bad featured a final season 16 episodes, which included a massive two-part finale.

The success of the show has already led to a spinoff series about the show’s dirty lawyer, Saul Goodman. That series, titled Better Call Saul, will debut on AMC in 2014.

On an interesting note, the Breaking Bad series finale part 1 only attracted 2.3 million viewers. There is the really good possibility that millions of viewers set a DVR for the first part of the finale.

The only two cable TV series to receive bigger audiences for a finale are The Sopranos and Sex and The City.

Breaking Bad also won Twitter with 1.2 million tweets, the most for any show over the last week.

With fans still binge watching reruns of Breaking Bad on Netflix, AMC may already have a spin-off hit on its hands with Better Call Saul.

The real question now is whether or not Saul Goodman and his crazy antics can keep the attention of fans who tuned in to see if Walter White would continue to rise or end his run in tragic fashion.

Did you watch the Breaking Bad finale?