On Mad Men

NOTE: though the timestamp says July 27, I did not in fact post this until September 1. I meant to put this entry up in, you know, July, but never finished it, so now it's a bit out of date and I have since formed a broader opinion about this season of Mad Men, but here it is, mostly as written the week following the premier, though the last couple paragraphs have just been written today, hastily and without much thought. But, I wanted to get it up since I started it and want to move on to Fall TV now.

Everyone's favorite period drama is back. Or should I say, everyone's favorite drama, period, as I don't see how it won't win this year's Best Drama Emmy.

While last season brought us many unforgettable (the lawnmower), inevitable (Betty's discovery of Don's true identity), and surprising (the formation of the new agency) moments, I thought the content between these redemptive occurrences was mediocre. Grandpa Gene, Henry Francis, and Suzanne Farrell were distracting, and I'm still surprised that Mr. Francis and his relationship with Betty did not make the finals in any of TWoP's "Worst Of" categories in the website's annual Tubey awards. But the season finale more than made up for Matthew Weiner's subplot transgressions, and season four brings us SCDP, only in Arial here thanks to Blogger.*

The premier included entirely too much sex and too many references to Don's balls and Roger's crudeness, but also included some gems from the writers, who rarely need to use more than one sentence to show the characters' many layers and the attitudes of the era, as is evident from these lines (and their delivery by the cast):

-"Do you want women who want bikinis to buy your two piece, or do you just want to make sure women who want a 2-piece don't suddenly buy a bikini?"
- Regarding the lack of a conference table in the new office, a character (Bert?) notes that circle of chairs demands a conversation , to which Don replies, "about why there is no table"

-"I can use my expense account if I say they're whores, " says Pete, while proposing how to fund a rogue publicity stunt.

-"it was going great. Until it wasn't." - Peggy, on the result of the publicity stunt.

Prior to the premier, Matthew Weiner participated in an interview on NPR's Fresh Air, which included some of the following comments of note:

-"The stakes are so human on this show, there's no murders, there's no explosions...you have to have a different kind of stakes..." on moving on to the next stage in the characters' lives, and the trajectory of a show that does not rely on crime and other extraneous events to move its plot forward. This made me realize how many of the shows that I watch do rely on such devices.

-"Don's phantom limb" ...barf. Weiner is either talking about Dick, whom I really couldn't care less about (for the most part. I actually didn't mind the California episode, but those childhood flashbacks and his grating effort to so fully suppress his true identity beyond all recognition I could really do without), or about Don's penis, which we all know is not a phantom at all and would be fine never hearing about it again.

-Don's "almost self-destructive carnal force" ...barf again...Weiner goes on to comment on the reveal of Don's more kinky desires, saying "I don't care what anybody says, that's part of the human proclivity, so I always sort of, um, take that seriously without any judgment or any politics at all and say, this is the place where Don Draper is living right now." This is all well and good, but Weiner preceded this comment by saying "it's not that that's my particular taste, but..." Should we admire him for recognizing a very believable aspect of Don's human condition, or chastise him for feeling the need to include his own supposed aversion to such acts as a qualifier? I think the latter.

A couple other comments before I sign off:
-In the premier, Don offers to walk his date, Bethany, up to her room in the Barbizon. Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't men prohibited from the Barizon? Perhaps they were allowed in the lobby, but I'm almost certain they were not allowed near the ladies' rooms. And Matthew Weiner prides himself on being historically accurate...

-moar Trudy plz

*There was some ridiculous controversy started in the blogosphere about whether the SCDP logo was in Arial, which did not exist in the '60s. I'm not a "font nerd" and I could tell easily that the logo was clearly NOT in Arial. Whoever Evan is, he should be ashamed of himself, as no self-proclaimed "font nerd" blogger should ever have confused the SCDP font with Arial.