Mad Men - Season One
Starring: Jon Hamm, Elisabeth Moss, Vincent Kartheiser, January Jones, Christina HendricksStudio: Lionsgate
MPAA Rating: Unrated
Format: Widescreen, Box set, Color, Dolby
Running Time: 600 minutes
DVD Release: July 1st 2008
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Another landmark in the evolution of TV drama - Rating: 5/5
AMC's much-acclaimed Mad Men is a sterling example of how primetime television has evolved recently. While past television shows were dull visually and inert dramatically, particularly when compared to film, top-tier shows now display a sophistication that I would've thought impossible a decade back. While much has been made of the detail and authenticity (or lack thereof) of the early 60s setting, the specific locale (an Advertising Agency, Sterling Cooper, on Madison avenue) is equally intriguing. Though dramatic shows generally demand exciting professions (police, law or medical), the seemingly dull field of advertising is a brilliantly appropriate backdrop for an examination of the intricacies and drama of day to day life. As Mad Men repeatedly demonstrates, advertising is not about what is on the surface, but instead draws out that which was once inside, revealing that which no one, perhaps even the individual who is being exposed, was aware of.
Though Mad Men boasts an impressively large ensemble cast, the first season focuses primarily on a few central figures. At the heart of the show is creative department head Don Draper (Jon Hamm), the contradictory protagonist and already one of the most compelling characters on television. Though often amoral, Draper still embodies a masculine ideal: he is smart, cynical, ultra-competent and largely indifferent to social expectations. (Not to mention improbably handsome, but in a masculine, un-feminized way.) Draper is not without a core of vulnerability, but this only serves to give his strengths more weight. We also follow Draper's homelife, including his neurotic, vaguely unsatisfied wife Betty (January Jones) and their two young children. (Whom Don obviously loves, making his frequent neglect and betrayal all the more puzzling.) As a foil to Draper we have Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser), a well-born and entitled junior executive who imagines himself heir to Draper's throne. Finally we have Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss), a new secretary and eventual copy writer who is largely (though not entirely) separate from the cutthroat ethos of the office, and who often serves as an audience stand in. The cast of secondary characters (not that I've even covered all the major ones) is too large to really consider here, though the ensemble portrays them all with skill. The sheer size is perhaps a minor weakness initially, as it takes a long time for the average viewer to even remember who is who, and even longer for the characters to be developed. Nevertheless, it is worth the wait and effort.
The story is equally difficult to define, with the show taking an organic approach, juggling numerous different subplots without necessarily resolving them fully. The overarching threads could loosely be defined as the fate of Sterling Cooper generally (they're a small agency with, shall we say, erratic and unreliable leadership) and the uncovering of Don Draper's history. (He rarely talks about it, and with good reason . . .) While the hedonistic lifestyle at the office is always substantial, I find the business angle particularly intriguing, with the show examining the underlying logic behind many real world ad campaigns. (These elements also give Draper a chance to cynically philosophize, which is always a treat.)
Though the intriguing storytelling soon takes hold, the new viewer will must likely first note the shows extraordinary visuals. While we don't typically think of eras that still hang on common memory as being fodder for period-piece detail, Mad Men recreates the dawn of the 60s with all the care that a high budget film would give to any pre-modern era. (Truthfully, I couldn't say if the visualization is utterly accurate, but the totality of the vision is certain.) Relatedly, Mad Men's depiction of older social mores has been the major source of both praise and controversy. Though a fairly socially conservative individual myself (outlandish tastes notwithstanding), I can't help but feel the more old-fashioned critics are missing something. Intentionally or not, Mad Men works as an antidote to the laughably superficial views of the era promoted by tedious productions like Sam Mendes' adaptation of "Revolutionary Road." Modern liberals like to pretend that social conservatism and conformity were the cause of all middle class misery prior to the 60s, but is anyone foolish enough to believe that Don or Pete or Betty would be totally content if they'd been after the blessed 60s? Though there are plenty of "oh my god look at how terrible people were in 1960" moments, Mad Men is ultimately just cynical, certain that there is only so much we can do to rein in human weakness. (Note how the beats and self righteous proto-hippies are portrayed in a less than glowing light, and are verbally eviscerated by Draper.) The validity of this perspective can be debated, but it's not quite the same as simple permissiveness. (I'd also say that the show's values are fundamentally bourgeois, though that's a debate too tiresome and lengthy to consider here.)
In the end, most great art or entertainment is defined by the nebulous core of humanity that is absent from mediocre works. Even though the characters often behave reprehensibly, an attachment gradually develops. This culminates in sorrowful season finale, where we see the initially overly vain and unsympathetic Betty breakdown in front of the weird neighbor child over the state of her marriage and life, desperately asking for this prepubescent boy to tell her everything will be okay. Even better is Don's nostalgia pitch for the carousel slide projector, where he illustrates the notion with a brief speech given over a series of photos from the happier times of his family's checkered past, and his always impassive face blanches and glazes over just so slightly with restrained emotion. Rationally, neither Don nor Betty is worthy of all that much sympathy, but here reason no longer applies. By the end of the first season, Mad Men has reached that magical point where the fictional figures mean more to the viewer than such non-existent figures have any right to. This is another rarity on TV, and an accomplishment that more than offsets whatever minor flaws the show may have.
HBO Passed? - Rating: 5/5
I still find it hard to beleive that HBO passed on this series, since they have had some of the best television shows in recent memory, incuding Oz, Entourage, Six Feet Under and of course the Sopranos. I think I orginally heard of this because of that happening and decided to pick this up to see what HBO missed.
Mad Men is about the 1960s and you feel like you are there, with all the nuances of the times that are not here, rightly or wrongly, here today. The drinking and smoking that was so prevalent of the times ( I vauguely recall similar things happening from when I was a child, though it was alot later than this series, but were still relatviely social norms at the time.)
It is all Father Knows Best pushed into reality, where the men were the bread winners and the woman stayed home or were relgated to less meaningful jobs. The things that are often subject to the internet emails you get along the lines of "How Did People Survive?" (i.e., smoking, drinking, no seat bet type emails) permeates the entire show and there is the sense of how did people get by like that when we look at it today. Not as an indictment, but more as that was then and not now.
Very well filmed and written. Matthew Weiner's touch is still as strong as ever.
Great show.
One of the best television shows - Rating: 5/5
I recently watched clips of Mad Men on Hulu. I found it very interesting and when Amazon had a sale, I bought Season 1. I have now just finished a marathon session of watching Season 1, and this show blew me away!! I only intended to watch a couple of episodes, but got so caught up in it, that I spent the entire day watching all 13 episodes. I don't know how true the show is to Madison Avenue, but there is no political correctness here--the attitudes expressed on the show, while totally unacceptable today, all feel true and believable for the setting and time period. It was shocking to see a pregnant woman drinking and smoking (because they did that then) and other things shown on the show. I'm glad that most of those things are not done today, but know that people did act that way then. The direction, sets, crisp dialogue, and depth of talent of the ensemble cast, most of whom I was unfamiliar with, are all incredible. The only casting quibble I had was with the actor who portrayed the much younger "little" brother of Don Draper, who just looked and felt wrong to me. He looked as old or older than Don. The other supporting cast members, were great.
My favorites are gorgeous Jon Hamm of course, along with January Jones, and Elizabeth Moss. This is truly a great show.
A catalogue of modern neuroses about the immediate past - Rating: 2/5
Mad Men is one of those historical TV shows which is fun to look at, but has almost no historical verity to it, sort of like Rome. It's not abysmally bad; sort of like Rome. You can watch it, and it's kind of fun for the soap operatics, and for what it reveals about the writers and people who watch it. It gets a lot of small physical details mostly right, which sort of magically transport you to the era of my parents photo albums. The ugly furnishings. The narrow lapel suits. Greasy haircuts. The dumb skinny ties. The fact that everyone chain smokes, and people drink at work and everywhere else, all the time. The glasses frames which make all the women look like nerds. That sort of detailed superficial appearances is what the entertainment industry has done right for the last 20 years or so; in fact, it's the only thing they've done right for the last 20 years or so. Of course, they're about 5 years off on some of the looks, but whatever; close enough. Another achievement, seemingly unique in the recent annals of television: some of the women actually look female. Of course, there are a bunch of hilarious anachronisms: beyond the non 1961 era suits and dresses ... everyone on this show sports an accent which didn't exist until around 1980 or so.
It has a lot of fun at the expense of advertising. I find this amusingly ironic, as most people who watch this sort of show work in similarly vapid "creative" endeavors involving selling underpants on the internet, or doing the same thing on an interpersonal level using some silly variety of psychotherapy or whatnot. It genuflects at the false god of the counterculture; making dumb nihilist beatniks out to be somehow in on a secret that the ad men can't fathom, when in reality, all they really have on him is an inferior drug stash; booze and smokes, after all, were the background relaxants of America's greatest years. Real beatniks made the imaginary misogyny of "Mad Men" seem like small beer. Think I'm making some kind of unfounded assertion here? Go find me a single mainstream work of literature as insanely misogynistic as Jack Kerouac's "On the Road," which treats women as animated cadavers. You can't do it, therefore I win.
One of the amusing things about this show is how wrong it gets morals and folkways. While I'm sure there was plenty of sexism and seducing of coworkers in the early 1960s (since there is plenty of both now), the idea that it was a time of utter crudity, casual race hatred, extreme classism and a male conspiracy to keep women down is transparently absurd. The people who were alive in those days are still alive. I'm related to some of them; life didn't work that way at all. People were pretty much the same as they are now, except instead of being sanctimonious about not being a racist or recycling or whatever meaningless moral absurdity they're able to come up with, they just had good manners, which actually works better. Classism was exactly the same then as it is now, and a lot more subtle than, "I had to assume an officer's identity to make my way in the world." By the way, the main character's class schtique is hilarious, because it's what every SWPL ding dong from the suburbs thinks about himself; that he escaped some horrible past and family trauma in the suburbs for the high privilege of living near "artistic" people. The idea that housewives led some kind of bizarro life of suburban alienation while their evil husbands were off sleeping with everyone is ... well, mathematically impossible. Think about it for a minute. Who are their husbands off rogering? If you believe the premise of this program, there are 4-5 women for every men. While such a world would be a nice place for me to live in, it doesn't have much to do with reality.
Still it's kind of fun to watch, in the same way Archie Bunker was fun to watch. As someone else put it, it's kind of like Halo night in a 21st century frat house. I'm not watching it for the cheap sanctimony; I'm watching it for the sleazy gropings, high office drama, the female looking women and drinking of enormous quantities of booze. Plus, everyone smokes; most TV has entirely not enough smoking. Bonus: it's a great exposition of 21st century American upper middle class neuroses about the past. The sanctimony about "the way we really weren't so much," can be irritating if you let it, or you can laugh at it's idiocy and make drinking games every time someone acts in a way designed to elicit modern priggishness.
My rating: passionless suburban sex and a dry martini
great show - Rating: 5/5
Received as a gift-love this show. I had never heard of it and was thrilled to watch. Ordered season two-just started watching-seems good also. I recommend this to all, it is a great show!
