Mad Men

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SnakeEyes
I've heard good things about this show and recently picked up the first season on dvd. I'll let you guys know if it's any good, but in the meantime, I was wondering if anyone here watches the show/what they think.

Thoughts?

RE: Blaxican
Best show on TV right now. For rillz.

Bardock42
It is a very good show. I wouldn't say best on TV right now. There is after all True Blood still running.

BruceSkywalker
i have only watched bits and pieces of this, but i like what i have seen so far

Robtard
Originally posted by RE: Blaxican
Best show on TV right now. For rillz.

I tend to agree, but I've started watching Breaking Bad, and it's getting close in awesomeness.

RE: Blaxican
Breaking Bad's awesome too. I haven't seen much of it though; just a few episodes of the last season.

True Blood's gay. ahah

By the way, Don's totally gonna tap that Peggy ass.

Bardock42
Originally posted by Robtard
I tend to agree, but I've started watching Breaking Bad, and it's getting close in awesomeness.

I was going to mention it, but it's not currently running.

Which is a damn shame.

Robtard
Originally posted by Bardock42
I was going to mention it, but it's not currently running.

Which is a damn shame.

Have to wait about a year, which does blow, as I'm about to start watching Season 3.

Robtard
Originally posted by RE: Blaxican
Breaking Bad's awesome too. I haven't seen much of it though; just a few episodes of the last season.

True Blood's gay. ahah

By the way, Don's totally gonna tap that Peggy ass.

Watch all of it, jackass.

Yeah, starting to get that way. I'm still a fan though.

I hope Don doesn't do Peggy, their dynamic is good as it is.

Bardock42
Originally posted by Robtard
Have to wait about a year, which does blow, as I'm about to start watching Season 3.

Well at least you have Season 3 ahead of you...which is epic btw.

Breaking Bad is my favorite show on TV that's still running. Little contest there...

SnakeEyes
I've only seen the first season of this show as of now; it's good but not my favorite thing on right now.

Breaking Bad and Dexter are better imo. But again, I've only seen season one.

FistOfThe North
i just finished season 3 of mad men. the last 2 episodes of season 3 are in my top ten best tv episodes i've ever seen on tv ever, period.

Don Draper's the man but i like Roger Sterling. His quick wit and one liners are the best. i think he's the best actor in the series.

season 4 just wrapped up and i'm looking forward to it as well.

9/10. Not that it matters but they sound too, contemporary (most of the time). people in the sixties didn't sound or talk like they did now right? the best examples of how people sounded like in the sixties are pete campbell's wife, trudy campbell, and duck phillips, pete sounded 60's too.. or that "we interreupt this program with a special news bulliten" walter kronkite 60's sound. i dunno.

it just makes me forget that it's the sixties when they sound like their in 2010.

Robtard
Originally posted by FistOfThe North
Roger Sterling. His quick wit and one liners are the best. i think he's the best actor in the series.


Agree, hands down the best character. he's a total dick, but you can't help but like him.

FistOfThe North
Originally posted by Robtard
Agree, hands down the best character. he's a total dick, but you can't help but like him.

he can be crass but he does it with class. he's the shows comic relief.

i remember when that young brit exec lost his foot to that mower driven in the office by that drunk secretary, and one of the account execs told Sterling that the guy lost his foot and Streling goes "jezz, right when he got it in the door.."

ha..

siriuswriter
Season One was sooo good. I loved it when Betty had her sex fantasy against the dryer. Dude, I've soo been using that trick since I was like... thirteen. It was hilarious to see a grown woman trying it for the first time. My dryer doesn't do that anymore, though. Or my dishwasher. That was the most rumbly appliance in the house! Damn you, technological advancements and silent dishwashers!

So I should keep with it then? I'm on season two, episode two, on Instant Watch, and I had to get out of it.

I am waiting and waiting and waiting.... When does this get better?! Or back to normal - that would be good too!

Robtard
Originally posted by siriuswriter
Season One was sooo good. I loved it when Betty had her sex fantasy against the dryer. Dude, I've soo been using that trick since I was like... thirteen. It was hilarious to see a grown woman trying it for the first time. My dryer doesn't do that anymore, though. Or my dishwasher. That was the most rumbly appliance in the house! Damn you, technological advancements and silent dishwashers!

So I should keep with it then? I'm on season two, episode two, on Instant Watch, and I had to get out of it.

I am waiting and waiting and waiting.... When does this get better?! Or back to normal - that would be good too!

How about I just buy you a proper vibrator, instead of you dry-humping appliances for a thrill?

siriuswriter
Obviously you aren't a girl. You stand close to the dryer, you don't all-out try to f*** it. There are many ways to get a pleasurable experience, you boys are all one-hit wonders. It's a pretty big hit, but still.

And here's my sentence making this about Mad Men.

MAD MEN!!! On TOPIC!!

Time Immemorial
To bad the show ended today.

Cheers Mad Men fans

Galan007
Gotta say, I thought ending with the famous "Buy the World a Coke" theme/commercial was an absolutely brilliant move. thumb up

Despite the fact that Draper led an immensely tortured life(which, to be fair, was almost entirely self-inflicted, what with his enormous web of lies and whatnot), he at least seemed like he was trying to right some of the wrongs he's committed over the years during his soul-searching roadtrip across America... But then what happens? In his moment of woosah-induced clarity, he lets out a smirk, and evidently dreams up one of the most famous Coca Cola ads of all time. In the end, he just couldn't stop being "Don Draper, ad man" first--that was the only real consistency that he allowed in his life over the years.

So then the question comes: what was really his motivation for taking to the road? Was it to legitimately rediscover himself and become a better person, or was it simply to clear his mind a bit so that he could come up with some fresh ad ideas..? I suppose we'll never know...

Surtur
I love the series, was not too fond of the finale. I mean..Don didn't interact with anyone! By that I mean, no scenes with him and Roger or Pete or anyone. He talked to people on the phone, that is it. The rest of the time he spent with hippies. This episode seemed like it was a mid season finale, not an ending to the entire series.

What irks me is people acting like the ending was so ambiguous because maybe Peggy did the coke commercial. Even though it was quite clearly Don. Come on now: he is told in the episode that when he comes back he can do coke. We then see Don getting all zen and shit with hippies and finding peace, we THEN see the commercial for coke with people singing about..finding peace and all that hippy stuff. Hell, people in the commercial even had outfits VERY similar to the outfits the hippies Don was hanging with had. But nope, totally Peggy!

Can't help but feel sorry for Henry too. He doesn't know Betty cheated on him and probably never will know.

Sort of feel the same for Peggy and Stan. Stan doesn't know what kind of person Peggy is. She has nor problem sleeping with married men and abandoning the child she has with said married man. She has two serious relationships in the series, both of which she cheats on the guys. She one time jerked off a random guy she met at a movie theater..inside the theater, even though she had a boyfriend. Oh did I mention the movie she was seeing where she cheated was the movie her boyfriend had begged her to go see with him? Poor Stan has no clue what he is getting into.

Ushgarak
It was a brilliant last episode- thematically spot on and the ending about as perfect a statement about humanity as the series- always aiming to make messages in that direction- could have managed.

Very happy with Mad Men overall.

Time Immemorial
We can all thank Don Draper for Coke

Surtur
I watched it again, I liked it better on a 2nd viewing. I still wish we had some interaction between people like Don and the various SCP employee's.

There were some crazy rumors flying around about how this would end. Some people even thought Don would turn out to be D.B. Cooper. Though I am surprised nobody died.

They could of had an awesome spin off series called "Driving with Mr. Cooper" featuring Don driving around the country with his sidekick the ghost of Bert Cooper.

Omega Vision
Originally posted by Ushgarak
It was a brilliant last episode- thematically spot on and the ending about as perfect a statement about humanity as the series- always aiming to make messages in that direction- could have managed.

Very happy with Mad Men overall.
I felt bad not seeing the pitch session. For me, the best moments of the show are when Don is firing on all cylinders and making a pitch. I understand the importance of the hippie retreat scenes, but I don't like how our last scene with speaking parts is some unnamed character talking about his dreams where he's in a fridge rather than Don delivering the pitch of his life to Jim Hobart to save his career.

I understand why we didn't get it--I still would have liked to see it.

Ushgarak
I liked it very much done the way it was, fridge guy and all; it was all part of making that final moment work. They'd already done Don's goodbye/farewell drinks with the SCP guys a few episodes earlier, anyway (which was also quite clever). It's the same way they already told us what will happen to Peggy (though whether her ambition to create something of lasting value 'in advertising?' is achievable is another matter).

And yes, people were predicting apocalyptic ends. But in fact, everyone ended up pretty much with what they deserved- even Pete Campbell just managed to stop being an ass for the final half series in order to salvage something for his life. Betty gets a raw deal in general but she's still succeeded as a person, which is what she had struggled for.

Though I still hope Sal landed on his feet.

Surtur
On the other hand, Don was like..a pretty terrible person for the last decade. I'm honestly not sure what he deserves. Pete was pretty bad, but not exactly "abandon your family" bad.

Ushgarak
Well, what does Don get? None of the family fantasy which he always strived to build- that's lost forever.

And all of that possible inner peace and contentment he was edging towards in the last half-season he trades in for a new advertising idea. In which respect, he likely goes on as a spiritually unfulfilled but professionally successful Mad Man. I think that is exactly what he deserves.

Which is all part of the broader comment, because Don is a hell of a lot closer to what a lot of men want to be than those same men would openly care to admit.

Surtur
Why assume he traded it in for an ad idea? Why can't it be that in finding inner peace and contentment..he found he truly did still want to be a part of the ad business? What if in his mind..his coke commercial was his way of trying to pass on some of his inner peace to others? We know Don left the agency, and we know he obviously went back. What we have no way of knowing is if the Don that left is the same one that came back.

He is also relatively young, he could still make the "family fantasy" come true if that is what he truly wanted.

Ushgarak
I assume it because of how out of its way the series went to show how anathema all of that professional work as to any chance of Don finding peace. The retreat was all about disengaging- Don rejected that.

And Don is emotionally incapable of being a family man- that's another point of it all.

Surtur
I took it differently. I took it as Don somewhat realizing he wasn't 100% right. In a prior episode he'd been laying into Ted..questioning him about what he wanted in the future. Ted reveals he wants "bigger accounts" and this disappoints Don because apparently after having a hard on for advertising for so long now it is just another job. He thinks there has to be more to life then work, but I think he realizes that there is, but it doesn't mean he has to completely put work on the back burner.

I think when Don left he thought literally the only way he could find peace was wandering around the country like the "Littlest Hobo". I like to think he realized he was wrong and carried this attitude back with him to the agency.

Ushgarak
I don't think that's supported by what we see on screen at all. Draper looks for something bigger but he never finds it- the biggest thing he gets is the largest Coke advert of all time, which is impressive but only on the same kind of mundane line as Ted's wish to land a pharmaceutical. Draper had made it clear to Peggy earlier that you can't create something of lasting value in advertising- but he went back to it all the same.

Don is still ultimately Don- he can't escape himself. That's the message.

Surtur
To take a step back..I was rewatching the first half of the final season. In one episode someone accuses Jim Cutler of hating Don. He says he doesn't hate Don..he just hates what he did to Ted.

But what did Don do to Ted that was so bad? The only thing I can even think of is how in the episode where Don finds out about Peggy and Ted he sort of puts Ted on the spot a bit during the meeting, but that is it. Other then perhaps slightly embarrassing Ted what was so bad? Hell Don was even still willing to allow Ted to go to California in his place.

On to the next puzzle: the episode where Don first returns to the office. Don visits California and gets into a fight with Megan. We need see him having dinner with some men and then a strange woman comes up and acts like she knows him and then tells him what room she is in. Don acts like he has no idea who she is..later he visits her room and we find Roger is there.

I had assumed Roger had just sent the girl over to Don as some kind of messenger to get him up to his room, but then upon watching it again as soon as Roger answers the door he says "what are you doing here?" as if he wasn't even expecting it. So who the heck was the woman who approached Don? Reading the wiki description it makes it seem like Don specifically sought out Roger just to show him he had been offered a new job..but the way the entire thing is set up it really makes it seem like Roger had something to do with the girl who approached Don.

Surtur
I find myself wondering what happened to poor Ginsberg. Mental hospitals back then were..not the best place to be, and someone like him could of legitimately acted in a way that they never release him.

I suppose when he started talking about being a Martian that should of been a sign something was off.

Does anyone see the relationship between Roger and Megans mom as lasting? When both members of a relationship are adulterers the relationship is doomed.

Omega Vision
As far as Ginsberg's concerned, I do wish we'd have gotten some insight into how he was faring and what his ultimate fate would be, but I'm going to bet he was in the asylum for life.

As for Roger and Megan's mom, I think it could work out as long as they have the understanding that it's an open relationship--I don't believe either of them can really stay monogamous for long, but if they accept themselves and each other they can stay together for the rest of their lives.

Surtur
Yeah, I was going to say I don't think Roger could do that. He could cheat, but I don't know how okay he'd be with her getting with other men. That is how men were at the time "It is okay for me, but not you". On the other hand the show ends in the 1970's and maybe all his experimenting with LSD maybe gave him a bit more of an open mind? Would of been curious to know wtf happened to his daughter as well. I feel sorry for his grandson, his mom just up and left to go live with some skeevy hippies.

As for Ginsberg, I can't help wondering how things would of turned out if Peggy had decided to bang him? Since he at first tried to relieve the pressure via sex prior to cutting his nip off. Then again I think as long as he was working on the same floor as that computer he'd of cracked sooner or later.

For me, I wish Don had ended up with Faye. I think they got along the best...since with Megan and Don it did at times seem more like a father/daughter relationship. Megan was pretty and sweet, but that isn't really enough to sustain a relationship. I'm guessing she probably either ended up married to another actor/director or some artsy type.

Omega Vision
The most popular theory (it might have even been confirmed in an interview, I can't remember) for Ginsberg is that he's closeted gay, which is what led to his breakdown, so I don't think getting with Peggy would have helped at all.

Surtur
Interesting...there could of been a Ginsberg/Stan/Peggy triangle. Would of been horrible though. Still think Faye was the best for Don.

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