Better Call Saul Falters, Jesse Pinkman Spin-Off in the Works?

Breaking Bad spin-off Better Call Saul is struggling already, after just two episodes of its second season have aired, leaving Breaking Bad fans to hunger for something a bit more to their taste. Now series creator Vince Gilligan and Breaking Bad star Aaron Paul are doing a little trolling, suggesting that they're both open to the idea of a spin-off featuring Paul's character, Jesse Pinkman, while simultaneously admitting that such a spin-off is unlikely to happen.

It doesn't help that Better Call Saul, a prequel series that explores the backstory of Walter White's lawyer, Saul Goodman, isn't finding much of an audience, despite being critically hailed as one of the best series currently on TV. Ratings for the series' second-season premiere episode were down by a third from the first-season debut, and the second episode of season two fell even further. Its ratings are a fraction of those turned in by its parent series.

In an appearance on Jimmy Kimmel Live this week, Paul talked about a prank he played, in which he said that Gilligan told him to tell fans that there's going to be a Pinkman spin-off. It wasn't true, but that didn't stop many fans from getting their hopes up. For his part, Gilligan has said that while he thinks a series featuring Jesse could be interesting, it doesn't feel like the right thing to do.