The "Malcolm in the Middle" dad cooks crystal meth in the new AMC series, "Breaking Bad."

Meet Walter H. White -- dutiful husband, doting father, high-school chemistry teacher … and clandestine crystal-meth chef. The trials of this inhibited, 50-year-old white guy out to make fast cash for his family on the Albuquerque drug scene -- and getting in way over his head -- are chronicled, warts and all, in "Breaking Bad," a new AMC original series premiering January 20 at 10 p.m. EST.

BRYAN CRANSTON, the Emmy-nominated actor perhaps best known for playing the madcap father of four on FOX's "Malcolm in the Middle," takes center stage in "Breaking Bad," and he turns in a similarly funny yet understated performance as its unlikely hero, Walter: the hapless, mustached 50-year-old roused into extreme action only after being diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. (He has never once smoked a cigarette.).

"I understood him. I knew who this guy was," Bryan says of his alter ego. "I know people like that. And I think basically it's anybody who lives with regret … people who have that feeling of I should've, I could've, I wish I had taken the opportunities that were present to me at the time and for some reason didn't. And that's ultimately tragic and sympathetic."

And as ET's advance screener of the series premiere made clear, the series' man-leading-a-double-life narrative is equal parts compelling drama and comedy, a la "The Sopranos" or "Dexter."

Walter H. White will not have an easy time putting his advanced knowledge of chemistry to illicit use, you see. He'll have to contend with a passively controlling wife, Skyler (ANNA GUNN); his sarcastic, cerebral-palsy addled son, Walter Jr. (R.J. MITTE); his foul-mouthed ex-student-turned-parter-in-crime (AARON PAUL); and worst yet: his brother-in-law Hank (DEAN NORRIS): the hotshot D.E.A . agent who busts meth-labs for the fun of it.

"I thought that if we could pull this off," Bryan says, "we can ask the audience to at least understand what the dilemma Walt White is going through, if not to, you know, to accept or to condone his actions."

Or, as Walter H. White says of chemistry to his wholly disinterested high-school class: "It is growth, then decay, then transformation! It is … fascinating, really."