Pluribus mixes Breaking Bad with The X-Files to create something brand-new

When I sat down to check out the premiere episodes of Vince Gilligan’s new Apple TV series, Pluribus, I was honestly a little nervous. I’ve always been a fan of Gilligan’s writing on The X-Files, and Breaking Bad is my favorite television show of all time. But as excited as I was for a new show from one of TV’s biggest talents, I couldn’t shake the feeling that Pluribus might fall into the trap a lot of sci-fi and horror media falls into: spending so much time focused on the science fiction premise that characters don’t have nearly enough time to develop. I feared Pluribus would be too much like The X-Files, and not enough like Breaking Bad.