Nov 11, 2009 1
There’s a risk of expecting too much from the fourth season — there are so many possibilities that whatever path Weiner ends up taking will be disappointing. I’ll leave the specific possibilities for later in the discussion. Right now, I just want to commend Matthew Weiner for taking the leap and recognizing that this show was in danger of becoming too static for its own good.
Oct 13, 2009 0
Don’s unhappy at work and typically uninterested by everything happening on Bullet Park Rd. We all know what that means: time to have an affair! At this point, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that Don wants to cheat or that he’d be attracted to a hot, independent brunette interested in things other than puppy dogs and ice cream. It’s also tough to say it’s about the thrill of the chase, because he doesn’t seduce Miss Farrell so much as bed her by sheer force of will. There’s no logic — it’s all about satisfaction, the one thing that he can’t get at work.
Sep 30, 2009 1
We’ve talked a lot over the last few weeks about Mad Men being about the Rise of the Boomers and how it pushed out a lost generation too young to fight in World War II and too old to drop acid with gurus and dropouts. The series depicts the end of a way of life, and if Conrad Hilton represents the embodiment of it, then Paris is the figurehead of what it has become. The Hilton name signifies something very different in 2009 than it did in 1963, and that dissonance says a lot about the culture shift that informs much of the series.
Sep 21, 2009 0
British jokes, this episode had plenty! Just as Season 2 of The Wire taught us that that there’s a whole world of Polack humor lurking in the urban enclaves of the eastern seaboard, and Season 3 of Deadwood taught us about lost race of Cornish people, so Season 3 of Mad Men has reminded us that, forty years ago, before the era of postracial humor and white-person self-deprecation, the most fertile ground for SFW naughty ethnic humor were our transatlantic neighbors. I’ve lost track of the number of references to the Revolutionary War, but Roger made a joke about the Union Jack. He also had the line of the night: somebody mentioned Guy might lose his foot, and Roger shook his head, “And right after he got it in the door.” Everybody had a good blood-drenched laugh about that.
Sep 16, 2009 0
Jesus, Pregnancy! I watched last night’s episode with my girlfriend, so I can vouch for at least one female that last night’s presentation of the miracle of childbirth was easily the most disturbing in TV history. Or, perhaps more accurately, it’s the most disturbing portrayal of childbirth that didn’t involve any apparent medical difficulty whatsoever; you realized that the whole hellish routine (signing papers during contractions, last-minute substitute doctors, liberally administered drug cocktails) was all normal. Business as usual here on pregnancy row! The baby is breach! More demerol!
