Is Mad Men the best thing on TV?

**MargaretKrebbs** · 05-09-2011, 10:57 PM

Originally Posted by Canon

Really? I've never seen it but I've just bought a copy having recently finished SIX FEET UNDER. Alan Ball can do wrong?

Originally Posted by Snarky

Now "American Beauty" was ghastly and pretentious. As much as I like Kevin Spacey.

What Snarky wrote.

**willie oleson** · 05-09-2011, 11:18 PM

Previously, on SoapChat:

Originally Posted by willie oleson

then I'll try to watch it from that point of view

Well, I just finished another 3 episodes, including the one with Betty as the almost-Coca Cola girl, and I think I'm starting to get the hang of it.
Of course it's easier once you've become more familiar with the characters (would love to see Don smile a bit more often, he's so gorgeous).

Is Mad Men the best thing on TV?
I don't know, it's too early for me to say but I've already reached the point where I know that I shall watch all the other episodes of this 3 seasons boxset - and TBH, at first I wasn't so sure of that.

I guess it's not easy to be completely open-minded when you think you know what to expect.
Funny, this situation reminds of Twin Peaks. I expected a 90's version of Peyton Place, and then that feeling of WTF?? Back then I found it a hard show to watch, but loved it when I got the dvd's a few years ago.

**willie oleson** · 05-09-2011, 11:27 PM

Originally Posted by Canon

Alan Ball can do wrong?

I for one loved American Beauty - and I just found out he's also created True Blood!
Never paid attention to this show because I thought it would be something like Buffy, but according to a review on imdb it's NOT a typical show for Buffy-fans...

**willie oleson** · 06-04-2011, 10:38 PM

But, that's life.
One minute you're on top of the world, the next minute some secretary is running you over with a lawnmower.

Bravo, Mad Men

**Scarlett** · 06-04-2011, 11:45 PM

I just got Mad Men Season 1 at the library.

I'll start watching it when I am done with Brothers & Sisters Season 4.

**willie oleson** · 06-05-2011, 06:32 PM

Aaaah, just finished season 3. What a treat, it's definitely my favourite season so far.
Everything seems to come alive, and fall apart and bounce back. The wit is wicked, the drama is high. Can't wait to receive the season 4 dvd!
In the meantime I still have some HOTEL episodes to watch and of course True Blood S3 and - OMG! Falcon Crest S2!

**bacteriophage** · 06-05-2011, 06:38 PM

I love this show, I only started watching last month and I am already on season 3. Hooked

**willie oleson** · 06-05-2011, 07:53 PM

So...has anyone come to a conclusion regarding Don's adultery?
Is it rebellion against marriage, his way of regaining some freedom (he also doesn't want to work under contract).
Or is he having an indentity crisis, is he really Dick Whitman when he's with other women?
Lust? When he has a wife like Betty - a woman most men would die for?

It's not like he wants to give up his family life, so, is he lying like some bastard without any moral or does he believe his own lies?

And something else: would you be able to resist the seductive Don Draper?

**Mrs. JR Ewing** · 06-05-2011, 08:24 PM

Originally Posted by bacteriophage

I love this show, I only started watching last month and I am already on season 3. Hooked

Me too..just started watching last week. I have gotten through the first six episode...it's very addicting!

**James from London** · 06-05-2011, 08:33 PM

Originally Posted by willie oleson

So...has anyone come to a conclusion regarding Don's adultery?

I think MAD MEN is a series that actively resists pat conclusions.

**willie oleson** · 06-06-2011, 04:15 PM

Alright, let me rephrase the question then:
Does anyone have an interpretation regarding Don's adultery?

**MargaretKrebbs** · 06-07-2011, 03:16 AM

Originally Posted by willie oleson

Alright, let me rephrase the question then:
Does anyone have an interpretation regarding Don's adultery?

Don Draper is an antihero.

**Scarlett** · 06-07-2011, 03:38 AM

Originally Posted by MargaretKrebbs

Don Draper is an antihero.

Kind of like a J.R. Ewing type, but for advertising and not oil.

**MargaretKrebbs** · 06-07-2011, 04:20 AM

Have you starting watching yet Scarlett? Because the advertising is used as a metaphor for just about every single aspect of each episode, especially in season one. And Don Draper is a much more dimensional character than JR. There's another character on the show that might be a better JR comparison.

**Scarlett** · 06-07-2011, 04:21 AM

I saw episode one and two...a lot of characters to keep track of.

But I am enjoying it.

**willie oleson** · 06-07-2011, 11:46 AM

SPOILER- WARNING: SCARLETT DON'T READ THIS.

Originally Posted by MargaretKrebbs

Don Draper is an antihero.

Of course there were other men who slept around, like Roger and even Pete.
With them it always seemed more like a lust-thing although Roger eventually ended up marrying his mistress.
But Don had affairs and he really cared for those women, sometimes even their relatives.
He doesn't act like a womanizer, it's almost as if these things happen to him and he just kinda agree with it. That's not true of course, he really wanted them.

Or was it the 60's zeitgeist? Did men still feel superior to women and believed they had every right to do these kind of things?
Well, whatever the reason is, it's hard to dislike him. He's always such a gentleman, like a James Bond who just happens to be married.

Sins committed by likeable people.

**Canon** · 06-07-2011, 09:00 PM

Just coming to the end of S4 and I have to say that Sally Draper‎ is the best young actress I've seen on TV in a very long time. She has stolen Season 4 from everyone.

**califf** · 06-14-2011, 09:14 AM

Good show i love it too.

**MargaretKrebbs** · 06-14-2011, 06:18 PM

Sally Draper rules.

I just started watching the first season of 'thirtysomething' (don't ask and no comments please) and it is interesting to compare the two shows. Both deal with a particular way of life during a particular time in the US and are about advertising and family and the changing roles of men and women. 'thirtysomething' was current to the time period in which it aired - created, aired and contemporary to the late 1980'5 early 1990's - and it feels like the retro show. Funny thing is, it feels like we've gone backward from the 1960's when I watch 'thirtysomething.'

The male lead in 'thirtysomething' is also going through a crisis of sorts like Don Draper - wrestling with his morals and life convictions in order to make a living as an owner of a advertising firm, dealing with giving up his dreams and intellectual creativity in order to make a living, dealing with being a father and husband while being tempted to stray, desperately trying NOT to be a yuppie when he is the poster child for the yuppie movement.

I don't identify with Don Draper at all, and yet, there's a real humanity to him. You know he feels things deeply, and you know he struggles even if he is selfish and hurtful. And you know he has an intellect. If Don gave in to total domestication it would be tragic, not comforting.

But the 'thirtysomething' audience is supposed to want what Michael Steadman has, we're supposed to relate to him, we're supposed to identify with his struggle and then ultimately, like I know he will too, accept out fates as worker drones that can't live comfortably and also live the unconventional life we all think we want to live, when really all we want is dinner on the table, kids in bed, pretty wife, goofy friends.

It's also interesting to compare the two wives: Hope Steadman and Betty Draper. Hope is the wasp stay at home wife who is both super fulfilled by being a mother and through her child and conflicted about it at the same time - she can't leave her kid with a sitter because she loves that kid way too much.

I cheer when Betty leaves the kids with the housekeeper because at least you know the kids are getting some kind of love and affection then. But the funny thing is, I like Betty Draper better, way better, than waspy Hope.

**SnarkyOracle!** · 06-14-2011, 07:53 PM

NBC is now preparing its new MAD MEN knock-off, THE PLAYBOY CLUB, also set in the early-'60s and with its own Don Draper character who, if you squint, looks smarmily similar to the point of being sort of ridiculous.

I'm not expecting much.

But the NBC affiliate in Salt Lake City, Utah, has blackballed the show and wont air it. (The station is run by the Mormon Church).