Fans of AMC’s Breaking Bad were pretty ecstatic when the premiere of the fifth season aired last night.  Unfortunately, Dish Network subscribers weren’t able to catch the premiere of the meth-dealing life of Walter White because the network dropped  three AMC Networks channels — IFC, WE and AMC earlier this month.

Dish said that AMC’s decision to make their shows available on iTunes, Netflix and Amazon devalued their programming, making it unprofitable to be shown on Dish’s service.  Plus they threw in the “fact” that AMC’s shows weren’t really bringing in the money, citing low viewership.  But AMC says the real reason Dish dropped their channels is because of a separate case the two are entangled in, not low viewership.  AMC is still pushing their petition for subscribers to drop Dish in protest.

Breaking Bad, for those of you who’ve been living under a rock, is an AMC drama series that revolves around the life of Walter White, a chemistry teacher diagnosed with terminal lung cancer who turned to making meth to secure his family’s future.

AMC had a nice little gift for Dish subscribers who wanted to watch the premiere – by entering some of their information and confirming that they are indeed Dish subscribers, they were able to watch the season premiere, “Live Free or Die”, online.  But that may just be a form of torture for Dish subscribers as the second episode will not be aired next Sunday on AMC’s website.

So what are Breaking Bad fans, Dish subscribers primarily, to do?  Well, they can scour the interwebs to find free services that offer Breaking Bad, or get another pay TV that offers AMC’s shows.

During the live chat session last night, AMC kept reminding their viewers that they watch episodes of their shows via Apple or Amazon – legally – if their pay TV doesn’t offer AMC shows or they don’t subscribe to any pay TV.  Apple offers Breaking Bad episodes $2 for a standard copy or $3 for an HD copy.  The fifth season premiere is currently unavailable in Amazon’s Instant Video but it probably will.

You also have the option of watching it on Netflix, but Hulu Plus subscribers aren’t that lucky since all they view are minisodes and subscribers are really pissed at Hulu for this.  A lot of people subscribed to Hulu Plus for nothing.

You can also watch Breaking Bad episodes on TV.com and Sidereel.com for free or for a fee, depending on how thorough you are at searching links on the site.  Then you can also download the latest episode on sites like EZTV.com but that’s already called piracy so I’m not really recommending that.  But hey, that’s your prerogative. ;)