Is anyone excited about the Mad Men premiere this weekend? Scanning through this Guardian piece, my main thought was that the actress who plays Sally must be about 20 by now, but apparently she’s only 12.
For me, the squabbling over the contract that caused an extended hiatus turned me off a bit, just as I lost some interest in the Sopranos when David Chase decided that the breath and scope of his greatness dictated that some episodes needed to be a few minutes longer than an hour. If you’re so ready for your closeup that you can’t fit your TV show into the allotted time, and if you can’t settle your shit enough to run your show during its usual season, then you’re at the point where you’re too big for TV.
But maybe I’m in the minority here, and the rest of you are excited to see Sally’s loss of virginity to the low-IQ neighbor boy, Betty’s new tryst with an economy-size bottle of Miltown, and Don’s inevitable second divorce.
arguingwithsignposts
I never got into Mad Men to begin with, but man, there has been a media blitz this week. They even had stuff on NPR the other day. The epitome of a non-story story.
Raven
I want the beat chick to come back. You puppies will get to see the revolution sneak up on Mr Jones.
Clark Stooksbury
I was always glad that the Sopranos ran on a channel where it could take the extra few minutes if the story dictated.
BigSouthern
I’m sure I’ll sound like a Slate writer here, but I never understood the appeal of Mad Men. It’s like American Beauty as a period piece writ long. The costumes are nice, and I really like Jon Hamm, but it just doesn’t do it for me. White suburbanites have problems and lead lives of quiet, drunken desperation isn’t that interesting. There are good moments – like Don versus the Hippies from seasons 1 – but overall it’s flat.
FridayNext
I’m excited. Not to insult our host Mr. Mistermix, but I have better things to do than pay attention to entertainment news and hadn’t heard about any of these stories, including the Soprano’s bit, until just now. I just assume that half the people I enjoy in movies, TV, and music are raging, egotistical ass-hates. I don’t need confirmation from Entertainment Tonight. It detracts from judging the work on its own merits.
Yes, I am excited. Unless it is playing opposite one of my teams still in the tournament. I might have to choose between Mad and Madness.
cathyx
I want to look at the fact that I have no idea what you are talking about as a sign that I don’t watch too much TV.
butler
Part excited, part worried that it just can’t live up to last season.
Hillary Rettig
i will spend the weekend trying to find someone with cable whom I can watch it with.
bottyguy
My fascination with Mad Men mostly revolves around the characters other than Don and Betty. Peggy Olson, Pete Campbell, Joan Hollaway, Roger Sterling. Plus Robert Morse as Bertram Cooper is a hoot, any scene that he is in kills.
I think that too much writing for Don and Betty makes those parts hard to sympathize with.
mistermix
@Clark Stooksbury: Six Feet Under and The Wire fit it into 60, my friend.
Cat Lady
I can’t wait. I love the show, and love the way that the characters have all changed (except Roger). I’m dying to find out what year it is, and whether all of their clothes have changed to reflect the times – Beatle haircuts and Twiggy style make up and minis – probably on Betty. Also, Pete and Trudy have turned out to be the most interesting couple and now Pete will be a Dad (again!). Yeah, haters can suck it.
Clark Stooksbury
@mistermix: I’m just sayin’
Gin & Tonic
@Clark Stooksbury: And some haiku would be better if they went to 18 syllables, or 19 once in a while, right? I mean when they have more to say?
Marcellus Shale, Public Dick
i really don’t blame actors who become identified with a role, wanting to be paid like it. as much as it guarantees work in some form or fashion, it also limits what they can do. people really don’t seperate the role from the person. i thought the sopranos was over when they went back after the season that ended with tony on the boat. everything else was fluff.
btw, no tv show has ever done the losing the virginity thing well, and i am guessing none ever will.
jeffreyw
Noted film producer and Man About Town, the one and only Mr jeffreyw deigns to give you this link to his very first Youtube Homeric Epic.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
They one thing that annoys me about BBCA is that it attempts to fit BBC shows in the American “gotta pay our real customers the advertizers” format. So you get commercial breaks where they don’t belong, or pieces of Doctor Who get cut out so they can fit in the American hour of 40-45 minutes. Luckily when a series only have 4 episodes, there’s no way for the network to force another 9 useless ones.
So, back to your question: I haven’t gotten into Mad Men, but I think it’s good when people try to break our comfortable “piece of show” -> “sell a product” -> repeat pattern.
Bill
I like the story going on in Mad Men, but I don’t know how much longer I can stay tuned if Don Draper continues to sigh after almost every one of his utterances.
lol
Game of Thrones Season 2 premieres on the 1st.
lol
@Gin & Tonic:
What’s particularly special about the “normal” show length? It’s a moving target for most shows because commercials have steadily eroded the run-time.
Doctor Who is mostly 45 minutes but occasionally has a 60 minute episode. No big problem.
Clark Stooksbury
@Gin & Tonic: Hey if we go to the mattresses over a few more minutes of the Sopranos, were not out there earnin’
Raven
@jeffreyw: Good start grasshopper!
Wee Bey
@mistermix:
Nah, the Wire had at least two episodes run more than an hour — but the Wire guys are newspaper guys, and probably better with a hard deadline.
Chase was a bit of a wanker, you’re right. I loved the ending, though.
And have been waiting like hell for Mad Men to get back.
Chat Noir
@Cat Lady: Me too. When my husband and I watched the pilot episode, he predicted with confidence that the show wouldn’t make it because “there’s no likeable characters.” I remind him of that quote all the time.
Can’t wait to see the season 5 opener on Sunday.
Dyzo Bandit
Never seen “Mad Men,” but I have a grudge against it for sucking up all of AMC’s money which led to Frank Darabont being kicked off of “The Walking Dead.”
redshirt
I’m gaga over “Spartacus”. It is so much…. more… than anything I’ve ever seen on TV. Raunchy, violent, sexy, cruel, beautiful…. it’s amazing. If you’re into that kind of thing (especially the violence. It’s an extraordinarily violent show.).
butler
Even if we assume that a show going into it’s 5th season somehow isn’t making any money (seems dubious), Mad Men was one of the first scripted series on AMC. Had it flopped, there might not even be a Walking Dead to complain about.
geg6
I love “Mad Men.” I don’t care if you’re too hip to like it any more. ;-)
PJ
It sounds like you’re blaming Matt Weiner for the delay in production. Weiner, however, wanted to keep the show as it had been. AMC, which distributes the show, wanted to cut several minutes out of each episode so that they could fit more commercials in, while Lionsgate, which produces the show, wanted 2 major characters cut from the show each season so that they wouldn’t have to pay the actors (whose salaries increase the longer the show is on the air.) Weiner balked at both of these moves, and AMC and Lionsgate responded by offering him a crazy amount of money to do what they wanted. He still refused, and ended up with the money, no cuts in actors, and cuts in running time to all but the first and last episodes of a season.
FridayNext
@Marcellus Shale, Public Dick:
I don’t know about that. That 70’s Show was hilarious when Jackie and Kelso did it for the first time and Donna and Eric’s slow ramp up to their first time was kind of touching and then hilarious.
HK
@arguingwithsignposts:
Really? Are all cultural events a “non-story” to you? How fun you must be at parties.
PJ
MBunge
@butler: “Even if we assume that a show going into it’s 5th season somehow isn’t making any money (seems dubious)”
Let’s be clear about something. Mad Men is actually watched by relatively few people and, therefore, makes relatively little money.
Mike
Tom Q
I really don’t get any point to this post except to point out the writer’s hip above-it-all-ness.
You really devoted more than ten seconds of your life to thinking about The Sopranos running a few minutes past an hour?
Mad Men is great TV, in the spirit of The Sopranos, Six Feet Under and The Wire. I’m thrilled it’s back, and don’t give a rusty fuck about backstage negotiations or any other extraneous element.
FridayNext
@Tom Q:
A little ruder than I put it upthread, but yeah. This.
Skipjack
I’m definitely looking forward to Mad Men, but not nearly as much as I am looking forward to Game of Thrones. The delay cooled some of my ardor for Mad Men, but not the behind the scenes negotiations. More than that, while I’m confident I’ll love Mad Men again once it starts up, I don’t know how it will make me so I can’t really rev up my anticipation. I don’t know how far into the future the show will move, if some people will have been let go, etc.
Game of Thrones on the other hand seems to be a marketing machine. And it works on me, even though I’ve read the books and know what is going to happen, just the opposite of the Mad Men situation. Sometimes more is more I suppose.
Judas Escargot, Your Postmodern Neighbor
I only have time to follow 3 or 4 network shows in any given year: Mad Men is one of them.
Maybe next football thread I’ll chime in and make sure everyone knows I’m too hip for sports :P
Culture of Truth
Mad Men, Game of Thrones, & The Walking Dead are all good news for Republicans. Don’t ask why.
Persia
I took a break last season, and I’m now deciding if I should catch up. I enjoyed the show, and it’s beautifully done, but it just got too depressing for me week after week. (Breaking Bad should be even more depressing, but the roller-coaster nature of the show kept me coming back.)
Thor Heyerdahl
@Gin & Tonic: But…”these go to eleven“
Ben Franklin
@PJ:
I wish AMC would hire some programmers who don’t run the same movie back-to-back across 3 time zones. And what’s their problem supporting the new season of Breaking Bad with some previous season episodes?
They seem to be great at buying scripts, horrible at programming.
the fugitive uterus
i’m one of these people who refuses to watch anything that’s all the rage at the time. i wait until the show has been on 6 years or something and then i catch it on AMC or whatever.
i’ve seen some episodes of Mad Men since then (i have no idea what season and all that) and i thought it was pretty decent stuff. i find it’s much better not to follow the actors/actresses outside lives, behind-the-scenes hooha and such if you want to enjoy a show. a good show is a piece of art, period, don’t dig too deep beyond that if you want to keep enjoying it (unless the writing really just begins to blow), just imo.
the fugitive uterus
HOWEVER, i have to admit, i really would like to catch “The Walking Dead” – but it’s past my granny bedtime.
Brachiator
@mistermix:
Take the time you need to tell the story you need to tell. Timeslots are still based on fitting ads into an hour or half hour block; they have nothing to do with some ideal structure.
And as others have noted, some British TV shows are sometimes longer or shorter than average. And there have been desecrations when an imported show is trimmed to fit US timeslots.
Amanda in the South Bay
I think I’d have liked Mad Men better if conservative pundits/bloggers didn’t have wet dreams over the days when men drank like fish, smoked like chimneys, and women knew their place as feminine, subservient secretaries. Sorta like how the theocons wanking over LOTR made me not want to read any of the books or watch any of the movies.
s
Hell yeah, I’m excited about Mad Men coming back. The characters are complicated people who change over time. I won’t say it’s the greatest thing recorded in all of human history, but it’s well-done and engaging.
And it stands out among tv shows for its depiction of the white female experience. It’s fair to say that’s not enough, but as a white female, I can’t help but to take notice anyway.
shortstop
@FridayNext: Pretty much this.
@Amanda in the South Bay: Think of them getting their feet cut off by poorly piloted riding lawnmowers. I assure you, it does help.
rdalin
I am sooooooo excited for this season to start.
Brachiator
Arrg. Forgot to add that I like Mad Men, but it is not “must watch” stuff for me.
I’ve been rewatching past seasons of the British WWII series Foyles War on my Roku device.
@Amanda in the South Bay:
There is at least some tension, some acknowledgment that “the good old days” were not really so good.
mcd410x
Strange that both Mad Men and The Walking Dead are about seriously unlikable characters. The difference is that the writers of Mad Men can construct dialog, and The Walking Dead is at its best in moments of silence. In my opinion, of course.
the fugitive uterus
but then there’s Rod Serling, who smoked like a chimney, and he was awesome <3
nellcote
Anybody taking bets on whether Joan kept the baby?
Y’all should be watching Justified.
hitchhiker
Meh.
I watched a lot of it on Netflix, waiting to be stunned at the wonderfulness, and never was. It’s fun to have lived through this history and know before the characters do that something is about to happen — like when they were all assuming that Nixon would beat JFK in 1960.
But that doesn’t make up for d.e.a.d. dialogue. If you listen to any scene at all with your eyes closed, you’ll see what I mean.
Brachiator
@mcd410x:
I’ve heard great things about The Walking Dead and enjoyed some podcasts about the last two episodes, but I just can’t take zombies seriously as interesting baddies.
geg6
@Persia:
Last season was particularly awesome, I thought. You should catch up.
geg6
@Brachiator:
Watched one episode of “Walking Dead” based on all the hype. Didn’t watch a second one. Seriously stupid show, unless you think zombies are frightening. Which, IMHO, only stupid people do. But then, I feel that way about vampires, ghosts, space monsters, and pretty much anything that could be vaguely construed as horror/science fiction. Too ridiculous and unbelievable to do anything but laugh at them.
butler
@MBunge:
So therefore it is making some money, right Mike? So complaints that its reducing the pool of money when its actually increasing the pool of money are unfounded. So what exactly was your point?
butler
You could parlay that with a bet about whether she’s become a widow or not.
Waldo
I first thought that should be “breadth and scope”. But since the topic is Mad Men, maybe “breath and Scope” makes more sense.
Spike
I always assumed the “minute-early, minute-long” thing was network-level shenanigans aimed at DVRs.
Brachiator
@geg6:
Ah, I rememeber from another thread that you detest the SF genre.
This reminds me of local sports reporter Rich Marotta, a seriously interesting guy. He refuses to watch any animated film, dismisses them outright as mere cartoons for children. Even gets indignant about it. Pixar is dead to him.
Then again, I knew a woman in college who thought that all literature, being fake and made up, was a waste of time. She is a pretty good doctor, but not much fun.
And yet I often enjoyed a show like the X Files, even though in the real world I totally reject its premise of “truth is out there” conspiracies and belief in magic and supernatural crap. Go figure.
Fax Paladin
@shortstop: They’ll never play golf again…
JGabriel
@Amanda in the South Bay:
Mad Men is about how soul-deadening all that was. I suppose it’s no surprise that the soulless fail to ken that.
.
Rita R.
@geg6:
This thread is very dead and all, but yes, yes on Season 4 being particularly good. The high point was “The Suitcase,” which I think is the best episode of the entire series. I kept being struck by how well written and acted it was, which I rarely think of as I’m watching something. And I agree with “s” above on its complex portrayal of female characters in a way you don’t see much of on TV. Cannot wait for Sunday for Season Five!