Category: TV

Mad Men won the 2008 Emmy for Best Drama Series! Woo-hoo!!

I love that damn show! Congrats, folks! 🙂

This post over at AMC has some predictions as to how Mad Men will do at Sunday’s Emmy Awards. You can (obviously) read the whole post yourself, but I’ve excepted a large chunk of it below:

Let the handicapping begin. Mad Men is up against some very strong shows for best drama: Boston Legal, Damages, Dexter, House and Lost. Newsday says the odds are in favor of Mad Men becoming the first basic-cable drama to walk away with the best drama Emmy; the New York Post favors Lost but adds Jon Hamm should win for lead actor. As for Mediaweek, that publication predicts Mad Men wins for best drama, outstanding lead actor, outstanding directing, and outstanding writing for the pilot “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes.”

“A win by Mad Men or Hamm would help the Emmys do one of the things it does best: help to break new shows on the verge of bigger ratings,” reports Broadcasting & Cable. Emmys for Mad Men would also be a coup for Lionsgate, the studio that produces the show in association with AMC, says Multichannel News.

Awesome! I can’t wait until Sunday!

Sorry for the delay in posting this!

Another great episode of Mad Men is in the can… so let’s get right to it, shall we?

The episode begins with Betty having a rigorous morning ride on a horse. She returns home, only to pester Don into fixing an errant wall outlet. To say that the tension between Don and Betty is palpable is an understatement; it almost seems as if those two can’t even be in the same room with each other these days. For those of you keeping score at home, Don calls Betty “Birdie” for the first time in what seems like forever.

While all this is going on, Peggy visits her mother’s house. Father Gill arrives and asks Peggy if she’d do some pro bono work for an upcoming church dance:

On Monday morning, Duck gives Harry hell for a humorous gaffe from the television department: the night before, a Sterling Cooper ad for a Maytag washing machine called “The Amazing Agitator” ran during a movie about communist agitators. Maytag’s switchboard “lit up like a Christmas tree” with complaints, and Sterling Cooper was forced to eat the cost of the ad time. Duck tells Harry that, regardless of politics, clients are always looking for a way to get out of paying the agency, and that he (Harry) needs to be on top of situations like these. Harry then begs Sal, Ken and Paul for help in reading the scripts of upcoming shows so that Sterling Cooper’s ads don’t conflict with them; when it becomes obvious that they’re not going to help him, Harry looks around the office in a panic.

Meanwhile, Duck and Don meet about Heineken. The problem with the Heineken account is this: the company wants to compete in bars, while Duck and Don feel that the brewer should focus on “home sales”. Imported beer was something of a novelty in 1962, and Don wants to push Heineken to housewives planning sophisticated parties at home. “For women entertaining in the home, Holland is Paris”, Don says, as he comes up with a plan to test market sales in grocery stores by putting Heineken on end caps, away from the other beers, with cheeses, crackers and “toothpicks with cellophane tips”. Pete even suggests “shorting” the displays, to make it look as if the beer is already selling well.

Continue reading “Mad Men: “A Night to Remember””

Well, folks… let me begin by saying that I just don’t have it in me this week to do an exhaustive recap of this episode. Which is a bit of a shame, given that this was a damn fine episode, maybe my favorite of season 2 so far. Let me summarize the episode as best I can, then get into my thoughts on it:

The episode begins with Don at a Cadillac dealership. He wrecked his car a few episodes ago, remember? So now he needs a new ride. The thing is that while he’s talking to the car salesman, he has a flashback of his own days in the car business. Whilst trying to sell a car to a kid, a woman comes in asking for Don Draper. When Don introduces himself, the lady says that “you’re not Don Draper”:

Later that day, Don meets with the “Young Turks”, who share their vision of what “advertising” is for “young people of today”. Don, surprisingly, seems to like their ideas.

At the end of the day, Jane convinces Ken, Hal and Sal to sneak into Cooper’s office to look at his newest painting, something Harry and Paul decline for fear of getting caught. Paul even tells the group to “call me from jail.” Harry actually initiated all this by mentioning that Cooper wants to have a meeting with him. Harry is nervous because he thinks that the meeting will only be about about the new painting, and he doesn’t know if Cooper bought the abstract artwork because he actually likes it, or because he thinks it’s a joke and will enjoy seeing his employees try to kiss his ass with compliments for something that Cooper thinks is trash.

After looking at the picture, Sal, Ken and Jane share an elevator on the way out. Ken tries to flirt with Jane by mentioning that he’s a published author; amusingly, Sal picks up on this and talks about how much he liked Ken’s story. Later on in the episode, Ken asks Sal to read a story he has been working on, and Sal invites him over for Sunday dinner.

In an amusing scene, Cooper and Harry have their meeting. Harry still thinks that it’s to admire Cooper’s new painting. Come to find out, the meeting really is about the finances of Harry’s TV department, but Cooper and Harry have a fun discussion about the painting where Harry tries to be all “arty”, only to find out that Cooper has bought the painting solely as an investment.

There’s another scene with Cooper a few minutes later where he calls Don into his office to essentially orders him to take a seat on the board of a folk art museum. Cooper is not only giving Don money and power in the office, he now wants Don to have social status as well.

Continue reading “Mad Men: “The Gold Violin””

Christina Hendricks – Joan from Mad Men – was on The Jimmy Kimmel Show this past Wednesday.

She looked absolutely fetching, although I could barely recognize her without the 60s clothes and hairdo!

Watch the 6 minute long interview on YouTube here:

The Chicago Tribune blog has this excellent article about season 2 of Mad Men, and why the show – especially the second season – can sometimes be hard to watch:

I suppose the word “sentimental” is not considered complimentary, but I do think that the Carousel scene in the Season 1 was one of the greatest pieces of sentimental writing I’ve ever seen. In his pitch to Kodak executives, Don beautifully evoked the comfort and warmth of the past – a past that, in his case, was almost entirely a fiction (the pictures were real, the peaceful contentment they depicted was a sham).

This season, however, we’re not seeing the Don of the Carousel scene, the Don who was at least a little hopeful about finding both safety and emotional intimacy. This season, Don appears to have given up, somehow.

Those with more focus and more drive aren’t finding the satisfaction that eludes Don. I suppose what makes this season more sad is the fact that there’s more pain to go around. We’re not only seeing Don’s questionable choices, we’re getting glimpses of many different people’s difficulties. Peggy Olson, Duck Phillips, even Pete Campbell’s wife – it’s not that they had it easy last season, it’s just that we’re getting a good long look at the obstacles they all face.

It’s definitely worth a read!

All the Internet pundits out there just gushed over this episode, calling it “the best of the season” and “the best episode ever”. On the other hand, while I feel that the episode had some great moments, there was just something that I didn’t like about it. Like last week’s episode, it felt “off” for some reason (this episode even more so). That doesn’t mean that Mad Men isn’t still the best show on TV right now. Let’s hop right in to the recap:

This episode begins with Betty, Joan and Peggy getting dressed. In the background, “The Infanta” from The Decemberists’ 2005 album Picaresque plays. I did not like the modern music playing during the opening, and that has nothing to do with my like or dislike of The Decemberists – any modern music would put me off. Although I don’t want to paint Mad Men’s producers into a “you must use music from 1962″ corner, I hope they don’t do that again.

Anyway, at the office, Don meets with everyone over the Playtex account. It seems that the Playtex people – whose advertising has always plainly advertised the merits of their bras – are interested in possibly changing their campaign to mimic the dreamy, fantasy world of their main competitor, Maidenform. As was the case with American Airlines, Duck is all for giving Playtex a new look, while Don is unconvinced that change would be good for Playtex. Once again, the two openly disagree.

As Duck leaves the meeting, his secretary rushes up to him to tell him that his ex-wife, children and dog are waiting for him:

It seems that Duck’s former mother-in-law is sick, and his ex-wife needs to spend some time with her; thus, she dumps the kids (and dog) with Duck. Duck takes it in stride, though, telling the kids that he has a great hotel room lined up, and has awesome tickets to a play.

While all this is going on, Pete, Peggy and Sal discuss the direction of the Clearasil account. Pete thinks up his own tagline (“Thanks Clearasil”) over the muted objections of Peggy, who has her own ideas for the campaign.

On Memorial Day, we see the Drapers at a country club party. Don runs in to a guy that “did some work” for the CIA in Cuba, while Betty runs bumps to Arthur Case. The two have an enlightening conversation (“Lets be friends!”). As soon as the Draper children rush up and hug their mother’s waist, Arthur seems to instantly lose interest in Betty. It’s hard to tell what will happen from that. Betty previously pushed Arthur away when he tried to kiss her, but as we know from previous episodes, Betty is a sexual time bomb waiting to go off. Although she appears to value her marriage more than anything, I wonder if she’ll be strong enough to avoid infidelity in the future.

Continue reading “Mad Men: “Maidenform””

I just wanted to post a link to this cool article on the Mad Men blog about some of the women’s fashion on the show. Although most of the post wonders what modern designers characters like Bobbie Barrett and Betty Draper would wear today, there’s some interesting stuff near the end of the post about Joan’s wardrobe:

– The bras that Christina Hendricks wears on the show are based on an actual 1960s bra found at a thrift store in New Orleans. The costume crew bought the bra and, once they knew it fit Christina perfectly, carefully took it apart, and used the “bra parts” as a pattern to make several new ones for the show.

– Most of Joan’s clothes are genuine vintage dresses. However, the costume team usually buys dresses that are five to six times too large for Christina. This gives them a lot of extra fabric that they can play around with while altering the dress.

Mad Men is a funny ol’ show. I went outside for a smoke after last night’s episode, and I thought about how little “action” there was in this episode. Nevertheless, I was amazed at how much “stuff” was crammed in this single episode. And the more I thought about it, the more “stuff” I remembered. This episode reminded me of one of the “slow” episodes of Lost, but at the same time there was an entire season of “Lost answers” crammed into this one episode.

The episode begins with Pete and Trudy visiting a fertility doctor. Pete seems to be going along with it, but as the doctor probes him mentally, it becomes apparent that Pete isn’t ready to be a father. Things weigh on him. The Bomb. The economy. The world in general. It all makes Pete anxious, and I’m pretty sure that his concerns are real, and not something made up for the doctor’s amusement. I did love Pete’s response to the doctor asking him to talk to the nurse about scheduling a time when he can give a semen sample: “whenever she’s free…”

Back at the office, Joan shows off her new engagement ring, and Bobbie Barrett calls Don wanting to “party” because she’s just sold the Grin and Barrett pilot (aside: I like how Joan closed the door to Don’s office after putting Bobbie on hold. She’s a good secretary).

Although Don claims to be working, he eventually meets her at Sardi’s. He orders drinks and food for the couple, then spies Rachel Menken (now Katz). We meet Rachel’s new husband, Tilden, and find out that Menken’s is now with “Grey”, a rival advertising firm. It was a short exchange, but we learned a lot here. Don seemed to be more excited about seeing Rachel then she did him. In fact, she was downright frosty to Don. Whatever happened between those two wasn’t good. In fact, it was bad enough for Rachel to leave for a new firm. So… does that rule out Rachel as one of the people that Don sent the O’Hara book to?

Bobbie then suggests that they go out to her beach house on Long Island. She wants to feel “the cold sand on my back” and the “the surf pounding behind us”. Don and Bobbie keep the party going in the car on the way there, passing a whiskey bottle back and forth between them. Bobbie distracts Don with a kiss… which causes him to have a pretty bad accident. Don subsequently gets locked up for DUI, being over New York’s limit of .15! He needs $150 to pay the fine and get himself out of jail. Unfortunately, he only has $63 on him. He calls someone to help him out:

It’s PEGGY! She’s so awesome! She arrives with $110, then offers to put Bobbie up for the next couple of days (Bobbie got a black eye in the accident, and doesn’t want to have to explain it to Jimmy). Peggy even offers to pick up Bobbie’s clothes from the dry cleaners so she’ll have something to wear, and drive Don to the airport so he can rent a car. Damn! If I’m ever an executive like Don, I want a Peggy Olson in my office!

At home, Don sneaks in the house, only to find Betty waiting up for him in bed. She’s pretty pissed, but when Don explains that he was in an accident, has high blood pressure, and thinks that the booze and pills might have had an adverse reaction which contributed to the wreck… well, Betty goes crazy with worry. It’s the last thing that Don needs at the moment. He tells Betty that he “didn’t want to worry you”. Betty says that he could have at least called him. Frankly, I agree. Dude, your wife is HOT… what the hell is wrong with you?

At the office, the males are in heat because of Don’s new secretary:

When it comes to Mad Men, I usually check a few resources before typing up these things. One is the TV Squad recap. Another is the DVD Talk TV forum. The last is the “Café Society” section of the Straight Dope Message Board. In all of those places, male commenters seemed to drool all over Jane… and frankly, I don’t get it. Joan is way hotter than Jane, and Peggy could be too (Elizabeth Moss is one of those girls that can be really pretty or really average, depending on her makeup and dress). Oh well… different strokes and all that…

Continue reading “Mad Men: “The New Girl””