GQ: Why is that still true, when it’s obvious that some of the best work is being done on TV? 
Vince Gilligan: It takes time. It started out when movies were the movies and TV was this bastard stepchild.

David Milch: The symbol retains its hold long after the substance which the symbol is supposed to represent has lost its real basis. Look. [pulls a stack of scratch-off lottery tickets from his pocket] I just stopped and got gas, so, like an idiot, I bought a bunch of scratch-offs.

[He distributes the tickets. Feverish scratching ensues and continues throughout lunch.]

Matthew Weiner: If we win, what happens?

David Milch: You keep the money. Please do. What I’m trying to illustrate is that none of us, thank goodness, needs $10. And yet we willingly submit to the hold the symbol has on us, associated with luck. In the same way, the mystique of the film writer holds long after the substance—in which films were a more powerful medium. That’s not true anymore, but the symbol still has its own autonomous reality.

So great. And these answers too:

GQ: But you always had a certain arc in mind, right? You’ve said the project was always to see if you could convincingly turn a character “from Mr. Chips to Scarface.”
Vince Gilligan: In very general broad terms, we had a sense of Walter’s fate. But God is in the details. (I love that there’s two expressions: “God is in the details” and “The devil’s in the details.”) Anyway, when you do a show about a man who’s been diagnosed with cancer in the first episode, a very likely possible ending presents itself pretty readily. But the details of that ending are really where the art’s at, if there’s art to be found.

GQ: David, you didn’t get a chance to end Deadwood on your own terms. Or John from Cincinnati, for that matter. [Read David Milch’s thoughts on the premature cancellation of Luck.]
David Milch: You try to live your creative life in the way you would try to live your real life. Which is, if it turned out to be your last day, you wouldn’t be ashamed of the way you finished up. In the case of Deadwood, I had enough time to mourn but not enough time to really shape the material towards a conclusion. But if you go back and look at the concluding episode, there is a provisional sense of an ending there. Some series end halfway through and just don’t know it. So it’s not a question that I allow myself to linger over.

That would really be the perfect ending for Walt imo. Dying of cancer, having had all of his actions throughout the course of the show be for naught. Dying penniless, miserable, alone.

re: the second one, as much as I would have wanted to see the show go on for selfish reason, I think I’m one of the few people who doesn’t feel unfulfilled by the ending we got. I’ve seen so many people call it a cliffhanger and I just…don’t get it?