Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

This is a review of the Blu-ray set, not the show. If you are considering buying this, you probably already know how awesome it is (very), and if you don't, there are many reviews that will tell you all you need to know. I haven't looked at the special features, and don't plan to until I finish the final season, so there isn't really much I can say about that. This is a review of what you physically get in the box. Too many times I have purchased box sets and collectors editions, things that are meant to be nice and last, only to encounter peeling cardboard, cheap materials and silly designs. Not here. The barrel is about a foot tall and six inches across, making it a pretty significant object as far as movie cases go. It has enough presence that you could display it on it's own, but fortunately it's not too imposing that it forces you to. The two "ribs" on the barrel have a flat spot by the hinges to allow to the door to open, and it and the hinges double as a kind of foot that allows you to turn it on it's side, and put it on the shelf with your other movies with the BrBa logo facing out. Slick little piece of design right there. When on it's side its about an inch shorter than a regular Blu-ray case. The first thing you'll notice when you pick it up is that it's heavy, which is nice, heavy things have a feeling of quality that light things just don't. It's made of high quality matt plastic, except for the lid, which is glossy. Everything that makes it look like a case is very discreet, the door opens with a little notch that is just big enough that you don't actually need to use a fingernail, but still very small, as are the hinges. Unless you look closely, it really does look like a little barrel, not a case that looks like a little barrel. The top pulls off, revealing the special features disk held on to the underside of it with a nice pop button tray, and a little compartment that has the apron and the coin. It fits very very snugly, which is a good thing, as it allows you to pick up the whole thing by the lid without it coming off. The coin is very heavy and the design is very crisp and nicely done, but I don't really understand what I'm supposed to do with it, or even what it's supposed to be (it seems like a take on a sobriety coin, but it doesn't have a number on it) The apron comes sealed in a package the size of a doughnut, with money patterned cardboard that you can leave in the bottom of the compartment. I just unpacked it and haven't had a chance to wash it or anything yet, so it is extremely wrinkly, but I did try it on. I knew it was going to be fairly thin, as every textile item that has come with a collectors edition that I've purchased has been, but my hope was that it would be actually usable as an apron, not just a novelty, and it has clearly been designed with just that in mind. It's thin, but really not that bad at all, considering how small of a package it comes in, and more importantly the Los Pollos y Hermanos logo on the front has a rubbery quality to it, and can clearly take some wear and tear. It is crisp and the colors are bright. I wish it was a little longer (it's torso only), but given that it is fast food themed I can dig it. It has three pockets in the front. So to summarize on the extras: really nice. It would have been cool to have had more, but what is there is actually substantial (albeit a little baffling in the case of the coin) and stands on it's own, not like a lot of the shoddy "goodies" that come with collectors editions. So thats the top compartment, now down to the disks. The door is held together with a secure magnet, and swings nice and smooth on the hinges. In the door are the booklet and the digital download slip. The discs are where things get really cool though. It seems like designers have been struggling to come up with a method of holding a lot of disks that is classier and more compact than your standard pop-button setup, but still user friendly (my Alien and Star Wars sets use cardboard sleeves, which look really nice but it can be a huge pain to get the disks out.) The disks here are in plastic trays that stack on top of each other, but don't have any sort of nestling or anything, they are all stuck together with magnets, just like the one on the door. It can be a little tricky to get them apart at first, but when you get the twist down its a piece of cake. They don't have buttons, the disks are held in by the tray above it, which gives it a cleaner look. The plastic is really nice, not the thin squeaky shattery stuff most disk trays are made of. This is some heavy duty acrylic or something. And it's nice and thick. Each season stack has a good heft to it on its own. Each season has a simple graphic of a significant yet spoiler-free object (the pink teddy bear for season two, for example) spread across the different trays for each of its disks, with the outline on one, shading on another, highlights on another, ect, so that if you take all the disks out and put the season stack back together they will line up (the magnets are set around the edge at irregular intervals so it will only go together the one way) and make the graphic. Nice. Each season stack fits very snugly in its slot, with no wiggling at all. You can pack it all up and shake the barrel and nothing will shift or rattle (assuming there is nothing in the top, obviously). The magnets for me are the best part, not only because they work so well, but because they are a sign of respect toward me as a consumer. When they designed this they clearly weren't thinking about what would be easiest to make, or use the least materials, they were thinking about what would be the easiest to use, and the nicest to use. Even the above mentioned Star Wars and Alien sets, which are relatively awesome compared to most, are still essentially just paper. This is an object. It has substance, and understands that it's worth it to go the extra mile for something like the magnets that seems like overkill, but only when you think about it relative to other disk packages, which are made to be cheap and efficient. Keeping that in mind it becomes clear that this is a very reasonable and elegant solution, it just happens to require materials that are above the bare minimum. To sum things up: If you love Breaking Bad but are on the fence about dropping this much money, don't be. This is not just a "case" in the sense that the show is the main attraction and all it is is a place to put the disks when you're not using them; you can enjoy this even when you're not watching the show. There are no nasty glue patches, there are no peely sleeves that you can barely even use for fear of pulling them apart. This is a nice, quality product that will stay nice for a long time if you take care of it, and will probably stay nice for a long time even if you don't. This is the kind of package a show like Breaking Bad deserves. [Edit: Someone in the comments pointed out that there is a video introduction where Vince Gilligan explains the coin. As I said above I'm staying away from any sort of special features until I've actually finished the show, but apparently it does have a purpose, and it's awesome, which I don't doubt in the least. While I can't speak for the rest of it, I can now tell you that the A/V quality on S4E12 is excellent, one of the better Blu-ray transfers I've seen/heard, so presumably the rest of it is up to the same snuff]