‘Breaking Bad’ season 5, ‘Talking Dead,’ and ‘Low Winter Sun’ receive premiere dates

AMC made some big announcements on Wednesday, and if you are a fan of a certain Bryan Cranston series in particular, you have quite a bit to celebrate right now.

“Breaking Bad” season 5 is officially going to return for its final eight episodes on Sunday, August 11 at 9:00 p.m. Eastern time, which moves the hit series up an hour from where it was throughout the first eight episodes of the season. The risk in making this move is simple: you are competing against both “True Blood” and “Dexter,” and those are two major players considering that the summer is a quiet time of year. We’re assuming that “The Killing” will wrap itself up the week before, that way Heisenberg has much of the schedule to himself.

The reason for this bump up, though, is so that the new drama “Low Winter Sun,” which revolves around the complicated world of cops and criminals in Detroit, can premiere at the same time using it as a lead-in. This series has ten episodes in its first season, which means that it will likely run through early October until the week before “The Walking Dead” returns for season 4.

Finally, some news on the aftershow front. “Talking Dead” has been officially renewed for a third season, and AMC confirmed that there will be a “Talking Bad” aftershow that airs following “Low Winter Sun” for eight weeks this summer. There is no confirmation as of yet if Chris Hardwick (“Talking Dead”) will also host this show, but he has done interviews on “The Nerdist” with everyone from Bryan Cranston to Betsy Brandt.

In other news, the unscripted series “Comic Book Men” and “Freakshow” have each been renewed for additional seasons.  If you want to read some more news on the possible “Breaking Bad” spin-off show featuring Saul Goodman front and center, be sure to visit the link here.

Photo: AMC