I was thinking awhile back that Walter White in Breaking Bad, and Norman's brother Dylan in Bates Motel, both work in the drug trade and are sympathetic characters, where the viewer feels empathy for these criminals, and perhaps even feels envy for the money they are earning, and the level of adventure in what they do.
It reminded me of Robert Bloch's afterword his short story in Harlan Ellison's Dangerous Visions anthology, where he talks about another story he had written about a decade before, with a villain as the central character. And when a decade or so later, a publisher put Bloch's novel back into print sometime in mid 1960's, in reading the cover description written by the publisher for his own book, Bloch discovered that his villain had emerged as an anti-hero! A manifestation of the slow warping of values that is occuring in our society.
When I was watching the first few episodes of Bates Motel I remembered what Bloch had said. And I wondered if these villain/anti-heroes of the current crop were influencing a new generation toward more criminal behavior.
It can safely be assumed that Mr Doran would not have had the idea to pursue this venture without viewing the exploits of Walter White.
