‘Breaking Bad’ ad recites ‘Ozymandias’

“Breaking Bad,” by far the current critical favorite series on TV, is about to kick off its final eight episodes on AMC. And what better way to court the innate high-brow leanings of those same critics than to turn an ad for the final episodes into a poetry reading?

The ad doesn’t show any of the familiar characters, just a few of the familiar settings and not one bit of footage from the last run of episodes. What it does feature is series star Bryan Cranston reading aloud Percy Bysshe Shelley’s 1818 poem “Ozymandias.”

In sinister tones, laid overtop shots of a depopulated New Mexico landscape, Cranston reads, “Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

PHOTOS: Behind the scenes of ‘Breaking Bad’

Shelley’s poem, about the inevitable decline of even the grandest and most powerful of leaders, gives us a hint of what’s to come for the great and mighty Heisenberg, the meth-dealing drug lord alter ego of high school chemistry teacher Walter White (Cranston).

The beginning of the end premieres Aug. 11 on AMC.

ALSO:

DogTV launches with programming for dogs

In CNN’s ‘Our Nixon,’ president vents about ‘All in the Family’

TCA press tour: ‘Glee’ will address Cory Monteith’s death in third episode