Rubicon, Breaking Bad and Mad Men

I love AMC's "Rubicon" so much that after it airs at 9PM on Sunday night I stay up and watch 2 hours of "Mad men" (the new episode and its encore) so I can see the "Rubicon" encore. I simply can't get enough "Rubicon". AMC's motto is "Story matters here" and Rubicon is proof that a TV show doesn't need any well-known actors to make raving fans out of viewers if the story is strong.

"Rubicon" started with a bang, figuratively and literally. While his family frolicks on the lawn a guy finds a four-leaf clover in his morning paper and takes out a pistol and blows out his brains. On "Rubicon", people who see four leaf clovers either commit suicide or get death threats and electronic bugs in their homes. 

"Rubicon's" main character, Will Travers, played by James Badge Dale, works for something called API - American Poiicy Institute. API is a contractor to every branch of the US military and all the US spy agencies and has access to every secret and top secret database. When they're not spying on their bosses and co-workers or being spied on by their bosses and co-workers, Will Travers' team of analysts are tracking terrorists and trying to figure out what they're up to before there's another 9/11. 

I can't stop watching. I'm hopelessly hooked.

I'm hooked on three AMC shows. The other two I've mentioned in this bog before: "Mad Men" and "Breaking Bad". "Mad Men" is nearing season's end and "Breaking Bad" will soon return to the screen with a new season. I'll watch every new episode and I'll stay up late and watch the encore presentations. And when AMC has those marathons when they re-play every episode of "Breaking Bad" or "Rubicon", I'll watch them again. I simply have to find out why it's called "Rubicon" and why when those four-leaf clovers show up people either commit suicide or get caught up in a spynet.

And if you'd told me a few years ago that on Sunday nights I'd stay up late to watch a show about a high school science teacher who becomes the biggest meth cooker in Albuquerque and then The Southwest, I'd have said you were the one with the meth habit but, like AMC says, the story matters and as long as AMC keeps giving me strong stories, I'm going to take a pizza or a bag of potato chips and a dip to bed with me and spend as many hours with AMC's shows as AMC is willing to give me. I hope the other networks are paying attention to what's going on at AMC. If AMC's shows were part of the basic cable package across the nation, AMC would have more viewers on Sunday nights than all the other networks combined.