4
   

"Mad Men": Anybody else watching/watched it, and love it?

 
 
dlowan
 
Reply Sun 19 Apr, 2009 09:43 am
This is just showing on free to air TV here...but I scooped it up on DVD a few weeks ago, knowing nothing about it, on the strength of the Soprano connection (via its creator.)

I have just watched the last episode, and it's a wonderful show.

Anyone else know it/love it and want to discuss it?
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Type: Discussion • Score: 4 • Views: 15,596 • Replies: 177
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Chumly
 
  1  
Reply Sun 19 Apr, 2009 10:26 am
Don Draper is a sleep-around. And he was so mean to his brother, his bro committed suicide.
rosborne979
 
  1  
Reply Sun 19 Apr, 2009 12:53 pm
@dlowan,
I haven't seen it. What do you like about it?

dlowan
 
  1  
Reply Sun 19 Apr, 2009 03:25 pm
@Chumly,
Do you equate good TV with saintly characters?
dlowan
 
  1  
Reply Sun 19 Apr, 2009 03:26 pm
@rosborne979,
Wit, style, complexity, irony, and amusement.
0 Replies
 
Chumly
 
  -1  
Reply Sun 19 Apr, 2009 03:44 pm
@dlowan,
The Saint was adapted for television in 1962 (with Roger Moore). There were 71 black and white, and 47 color episodes. It ended in 1969, but resurfaced in 1979, renamed The Return of The Saint.

I've been watching Mad Men since its debut.
dlowan
 
  1  
Reply Sun 19 Apr, 2009 03:46 pm
@Chumly,
One assumes it is possible you may like it then?

msolga
 
  1  
Reply Sun 19 Apr, 2009 04:56 pm
@dlowan,

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/07/19/arts/19.stan.span.jpg
Quote:
This new drama set in the golden age of Madison Avenue serves as a bridge to a faded and now forbidden world.

Men wore white shirts, drank Manhattans and harassed compliant secretaries in the elevator. Everybody read Reader’s Digest. Jews worked in Jewish advertising agencies, blacks were waiters and careful not to seem too uppity, and doctors smoked during gynecological exams. Women were called “girls.” Men who loved men kept it to themselves.

The magic of “Mad Men” is that it softly spoofs those cruel, antiquated mores without draining away the romance of that era: the amber-lit bars and indigo nightclubs, soaring skyscrapers, smoky railway cars and the brash confidence that comes with winning a war and owning the world. It’s a sardonic love letter to the era that wrought “The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit” and “The Best of Everything,” but homage is paid with more affection than satire.

Matthew Weiner, who was a producer and writer on “The Sopranos,” created “Mad Men” and lends it some of the HBO show’s wit, apt music and sumptuous cinematography. Most of all the series walks the line between tongue-in-cheek knowingness and know-it-all parody.


msolga
 
  1  
Reply Sun 19 Apr, 2009 05:19 pm
@dlowan,
I watched the first episode on SBS last week, Deb, & enjoyed it a lot, too. The typing pool (the good advice the new "girl" was given. Haha!), the fashions, those incredibly confident ad men & their brilliant ideas, everyone smoking like crazy, everyone drinking at every opportunity, the double standards ... it was great! Blast from the past in the most interesting & amusing way. I found this review from the NYT (it was first broadcast in the US in 2007) you might find interesting. I'll definitely be watching to see how the plot develops! :

Smoking, Drinking, Cheating and Selling
July 19, 2007/NYT

There were seven deadly sins practiced at the dawn of the 1960s: smoking, drinking, adultery, sexism, homophobia, anti-Semitism and racism. In its first few minutes “Mad Men” on AMC taps into all of them

http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2007/07/19/arts/19.stan.span.jpg

Quote:
This new drama set in the golden age of Madison Avenue serves as a bridge to a faded and now forbidden world.

Men wore white shirts, drank Manhattans and harassed compliant secretaries in the elevator. Everybody read Reader’s Digest. Jews worked in Jewish advertising agencies, blacks were waiters and careful not to seem too uppity, and doctors smoked during gynecological exams. Women were called “girls.” Men who loved men kept it to themselves.

The magic of “Mad Men” is that it softly spoofs those cruel, antiquated mores without draining away the romance of that era: the amber-lit bars and indigo nightclubs, soaring skyscrapers, smoky railway cars and the brash confidence that comes with winning a war and owning the world. It’s a sardonic love letter to the era that wrought “The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit” and “The Best of Everything,” but homage is paid with more affection than satire.

Matthew Weiner, who was a producer and writer on “The Sopranos,” created “Mad Men” and lends it some of the HBO show’s wit, apt music and sumptuous cinematography. Most of all the series walks the line between tongue-in-cheek knowingness and know-it-all parody. ....


http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/19/arts/television/19stan.html?_r=1



msolga
 
  1  
Reply Sun 19 Apr, 2009 05:36 pm
@msolga,
... at this very early stage, I predict the "new girl" is in for a very nasty time of it (very bad judgement! Possibily an "unwanted pregancy"on the cards. Wink ) , a few of the high flying mad men are in for dramatic falls from great heights, the breakup of the main charcter's (name?) marriage & lots of rampant infidelity! And as for the new approach to cigarette advertising ... I can't wait! Very Happy Wink
0 Replies
 
Chumly
 
  -4  
Reply Sun 19 Apr, 2009 06:37 pm
@dlowan,
Yes..........Oh Yes!!

Donald Draper stole a dead army soldier's identity to hide his cowardice.

Chubby straight-laced Peggy gets pregnant from a one-time office liaison and does not even realize she's carrying until a doctor informs her.
0 Replies
 
msolga
 
  1  
Reply Sun 19 Apr, 2009 07:02 pm
@msolga,
Whoops, double post!
Sorry!
0 Replies
 
msolga
 
  1  
Reply Mon 20 Apr, 2009 06:37 am
That's the end of the discussion?

Oh rats! Sad
dlowan
 
  1  
Reply Mon 20 Apr, 2009 03:42 pm
@msolga,
No!

Ah'll be baack.
msolga
 
  1  
Reply Mon 20 Apr, 2009 05:13 pm
@dlowan,
Oh good. (& maybe Chumly will have lost interest by then? Wink )

How many episodes are there, by the way? Not being a great teev person, I'll have to find a way of reminding myself to watch each Thursday night.

I'm surprised more US A2Kers (apparently) haven't seen it. It's terrific! (Well, so far, anyway.)
dlowan
 
  1  
Reply Mon 20 Apr, 2009 05:20 pm
@msolga,
13 in the first series.

There's two series so far, as far as I know.
dlowan
 
  1  
Reply Mon 20 Apr, 2009 05:22 pm
@dlowan,
Damn!

I just realised why all the spoiler alerts have been put on this thread, when I so carefully hadn't written anything to spoil anything.

msolga
 
  1  
Reply Mon 20 Apr, 2009 05:47 pm
@dlowan,
Hadn't noticed those spoiler alerts till you just mentioned them, Deb. That could explain why so few have responded to this thread so far. Didn't occur to me that anyone who might watch it wouldn't have done so already (That NYT review I posted (above) was from 2007.) OK, I'll be very careful about anything I might say about the plot!
dlowan
 
  1  
Reply Mon 20 Apr, 2009 06:23 pm
@msolga,
I think Chumly nixed that already.

Just put spoiler alert on top of your post.
0 Replies
 
dlowan
 
  1  
Reply Tue 21 Apr, 2009 07:48 am
@msolga,
You know, the portrayal of relations between the sexes both fascinates and sickens me!!

I can remember so much of that stuff...not that I would have been alert to the sexual stuff as a wee kid...but I sure as hell found something revolting in the attitudes of the men....behind all that dumb chivalry.

And I remember my mum, who drove ten ton trucks all over Australia alone during WW II, and who could do anything with horses and muster a huge mob of cattle, become kind of helpless and diminished.

And not having anything to do with the money, except her house-keeping, and all the other stuff...not to mention that the gross male behaviour was very common still when I waitressed in the seventies.

But the period is so finely observed, and the humour so good!! And the exploration of maleness and femaleness so interesting...and it is so witty.

And, dammit, the glamour is lovely.

Also, sans the lecture on not being the town bike and the smoking, my first VE was as revolting and grossly inappropriate as Peggy's. Yeccch. Oh man, do I remember how awful doctors often were!!!
 

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