Good news (nerds alike)! In an attempt to combat early-morning insomnia, I was flipping through the channels and saw a commercial for the new season of Breaking Bad. Having fallen victim to last years writer strike, the show was cut at 7 episodes with no indication whether it would get picked up. Fortunately, the second season of Breaking Bad premieres March 8 (10 EST/9 CST) on AMC. For what it’s worth, Comcast is running the whole first season in its On-Demand package.

For those not familiar with the show, Walt White (portrayed by Bryan Cranston) is a high school chemistry teacher in his 50’s recently diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. In what appears to be a mid-life crisis, White partners up with a former student to launch a fairly lucrative methamphetamine business. The show twists and turns through a maze of fundamentally accurate synthetic chemistry (chem-geeks no doubt rejoiced in terms such as “chirality,” “reductive amination” and “titration”) and the street drug business. While most pilots are pretty rough around the edges, Breaking Bad’s was reasonably tolerable and starts the show off fairly well.

I’ll caution you (should you need it) that the show is quite graphic in some scenes and largely presents an overall sense of dread.