Mad Men

[Miss 9]

Mad Men is so awesome. I love it. It's about identity and gender and capitalism and sexism and ennui and deception and sex and families and frustration and, most importantly, it's fucking gorgeous.






And Jon Hamm as Don Draper?


B STIL MAI HART!

[schlump]

it is getting pretty good.
i still think it has some problems; the sort of historical, representative veneer kind of limits the emotional capacity of some of the characters (like the women, who only operate in binary docile/over-emotional modes). but that's changing. peggy's BRILLIANT, and i like the idea of them developing don's wife (i can't remember her name, but that feels strangely apt; betsy?) and her attempts at independence.

this probably should have been yes this is good. but maybe it's because they mentioned the sopranos too many times beforehand that i'm hyper-critical (like about the standard score music, and stuff).

i like this picture, too. there's another version where no-one's in front of the still-dapper-in-the-twenty-first-century, perpetually-un-clean-shaveable don draper, too, but i can't find it.

[Miss 9]

Oh wow, that photo is such a disconnect! Please don't make me think of the actors as real people just yet.

I never watched "The Sopranos" so I can't compare the two. I've just rented the first season and plowed my way through the first two discs. There are some parts that feel a little forced like Salvatore's homosexuality (he loves Joan Crawford!) and the beatniks, but for the most part, it's solid. I kind of like the way the women are limited. The obvious frustration the characters exhibit at being unable to fully navigate the society they live in feels authentic to me, though of course I have no way of knowing.

Draper's wife's name is Betty, by the way. She is played by the spectacularly named January Jones.

[schlump]

january jones sounds like the kind of thing they'd use in place of cuss words. january jones, batman!

i think it's sort of fifty fifty with it being forced, in that some of it is obviously too centralised, made ironic by the passage of time, and it isn't/wasn't (i'm on series two, and it's really moved on a lot, establishment done and dusted) perfectly integrated to the show (i've another slight criticism about sometimes things that happen are awfully predictable, which is because it's quite slow and straight in the way its shot). but then there are other bits which are just deservedly so; the silent therapist who phones in his progress reports to the husband, etc. i agree with the beatnik stuff; i think the failing of most historical representation is that the people aren't people, they're historical people. but then it has that veneer very deliberately, and i heard someone saying that, like with far from heaven, it's referencing-the-references to the time as much as the time itself.

the thing with the women is just something that makes me feel like it might limit itself from being as spectacular as the sopranos (which you must watch etc etc, even if you just get hold of the first episode, which is a masterpiece), because it's never going to have that dimension of tony-is-a-gangster, but you feel the same things as he feels, it's familiar, even if the circumstances in your situation were very different; that the aloofness created by the weird richard-yates world they live in is going to stop you from totally empathising with the emotions and moral ambiguities of it all. but i'm changing my mind on this, too; the women have got so much more interesting, and if only by virtue of shit-has-to-happen-to-people, if series are to keep going, i think liberation from the total docility of the housewife-cocoon is inevitable.

[Miss 9]

Betty scaring away the pigeons with the BB gun was pretty hilarious. It's all symbolic and shit.

[Gordon]

I only saw Episode 1, and it seemed pretty good. Is it on DVD already? TOu;re missing a trick by missing the Sopranos, though (although I've only seen 1.5 series).

[Miss 9]

Season One is on DVD and Season Two is now airing.

I didn't have HBO during the Sopranos heyday and, I don't know, never really thought about it.

[13strongmonsters]

I started getting into this, but couldn't keep up momentum, really. That's been happening a lot recently, though (same with the new series of Battlestar Galactica, The Wire...), and I think it's down with my inability to tune in at the same time each week to watch a show. I just can't maintain that kind of dedication.

If I ever see Mad Men cheap on DVD I might get it though, or maybe I'll just download it, because I enjoyed what I saw. It felt like it was settling into the characters, but it could do it a bit faster, and with more impact. It's almost too quiet for it's own good. I mean, the character who is obviously gay - they start to explore that a bit, but it's all kept a bit at arm's length. Same even with Peggy's relationship with that young ambitious creep.

But the main draw for me to keep watching it is Christina Hendricks. Hummena hummena etc.

[Gordon]

I started getting into this, but couldn't keep up momentum, really. That's been happening a lot recently, though (same with the new series of Battlestar Galactica, The Wire...), and I think it's down with my inability to tune in at the same time each week to watch a show.

Get with the 90s, between bittorrent and youtube (and networks sometimes putting whole shows online) no one's watching TV at the right time anymore. and the world's advertisers cry.

[13strongmonsters]

Oh, I know. I've downloaded a lot of BSG because it hasn't been on TV really. Just haven't got round to dling Mad Men. To be honest, the control over my television watching that bittorrent and such gives me means that I'm actually inclined to watch a lot less TV. And there are other things I've been meaning to download first - Freaks & Geeks being one. Man, I love that show.

Also, I'm generally not very good with these big epic shows. Ever since Six Feet Under finished, I've not found another show that pulls me in in the same way.

[Gordon]

I know what you mean, all those disappointing Series of 24 have left me jaded...

[13strongmonsters]

TV series' I feel on some level I should watch, but haven't:

The Sopranos
The Wire
Mad Men
Curb Your Enthusiasm

TV series' which I have watched pretty regularly, but don't know why:

Smallville

[schlump]

yeah. you should watch all those. and you should stop watching superman. just put spider-man one on whenever you're in the mood for wondering what it'd be like to get superpowers.

[Modern Antiquarian]

When's mad men coming to the UK? Is it something I should get a tv for? I'm impressed by the dapperness of the gent in the first lot of pics. Very skinny tie and I've never seen so discreet a pocket hankie! When is it set?

[Miss 9]

Season One takes place in 1960, Season Two fast-forwards to 1962.

[Miss 9]

Peggy's going to run that place one day, whether she wants to or not.

[Gordon]

When's mad men coming to the UK? Is it something I should get a tv for? I'm impressed by the dapperness of the gent in the first lot of pics. Very skinny tie and I've never seen so discreet a pocket hankie! When is it set?

It has already. Dunno if it's still on though.

[Colin]

The first episode is on BBC 4 tonight at 11.30pm, for anyone who's interested.

[spearminthead]

i love this show! the season two finale killed me. what will i do until july (season 3)?

[islandhopper]

The first episode is on BBC 4 tonight at 11.30pm, for anyone who's interested.

Thanks Colin. I recorded it due to your reminder and watched it last night. I was impressed and most intrigued as to how it'll develop, so I'll keep watching as long as I remember to record/watch it at random late times on a Saturday night (it's on at 11:40 tonight).