With the final season of Mad Men returning at an undetermined date in April, I will re-watch the first four seasons and watch the following two-and-a-half seasons for the first time. After each season, I will share my thoughts on the show.
Before I begin, let me share with you my experience with Mad Men. Like most people I presume, I did not start Mad Men in 2007 when it aired its first episode. I started watching Mad Men sometime after its fourth season in 2010. I'm pretty sure I binge-watched through all four seasons, although I have the faintest memory of how or why I started watching Mad Men. Since then, I have not seen a single episode.
The final episode of season four aired on October 17, 2010 and the first episode of the next season wasn't until March 25, 2012. I got Netflix for the first time as a month-long free trial in October of the previous year and didn't have it full-time until January of 2012. At that point, there were only three seasons of Mad Men on there. By the time the fifth season reached Netflix - I don't know exactly when but I can speculate that it was probably around the beginning of its sixth season in April 2013 - it had been at least three years since I had watched an episode of Mad Men. I had become interested in other shows and by the time Mad Men had entered my mind, it had set an end date and I decided to just wait and watch the whole series before its final season.
So I obviously didn't quit watching Mad Men, because I disliked the show. But I feel I have never truly embraced the show and re-watching this series will give me a chance to remedy that. Either that, or hopefully I can convey why exactly Mad Men doesn't quite earn its status in my opinion. Mad Men is generally considered among the best shows of all time, and I've always found that perplexing even as I have enjoyed the show.
Mad Men is an interesting show, because for the life of me, I have very little memory of what actually happens. What little plot there is on this show is really hard to remember. I know it's been four years, but I may as well be a newcomer to this series who's been spoiled with some memorable scenes. But this isn't exclusive to seasons I haven't seen in years - I'd be hard-pressed to describe what happens in this season, which I've watched over the past week. Seriously, if my father asked me why he should watch this show, I'd tell him not to watch it because nothing happens.
To be honest though, that says more about my father than about Mad Men itself. Mad Men is about characters - what they do, why they do it, and all the little complexities that define who each individual character is. The period detail is a superficial reason to watch Mad Men. It draws you in. The reason to watch this show is undoubtedly about watching endlessly fascinating characters come to life. I don't think I'm being hyperbolic when I say Mad Men has some of the best characters of all time in television - Don Draper, Pete Campbell, Peggy Olsen, Joan Holloway.
In the first episode, Don Draper is the ideal self-made men all men aspire to be: he's charming, suave, cool under pressure, and always looking sharp. Then the show slowly strips away at that, making him literally a self-made man, in name and practice. (I actually think it was a bit much that he was the reason the real Don Draper died). John Hamm is amazingly adept at portraying all facts of his character.
The character that probably stands out second is Peggy Olsen. Some people consider her transformation of character throughout the series to be the best part. I don't remember enough in order to proclaim that, but it's clear the first season is her discovering who she is and what she wants to be. By the end that answer seems largely defined by work. But she tries out other things before finding herself and she's probably not completely done. But work is a much farther place than she was at the start of the season.
I'm not sure I like the pregnancy aspect that much to her. I don't know if it's because I know what Elisabeth Moss looks like, but the makeup on her to make her appear fat is pretty atrocious. Plus, she really doesn't realize she's pregnant until she has the baby?! (This isn't exactly an original complaint, but nonetheless it's ridiculous anyway on a show that largely strives for realism.)
Then there's Pete Campbell, who's equally parts despicable and sympathetic. I might argue Campbell's an even more interesting character than Draper. The difference is that most want to be Draper. Nobody wants to be Pete Campbell. Campbell wants to be Draper and every time he attempts, he fails miraculously. But he's also progressive and forward-thinking.
The character of Campbell is only possible in a world where masculinity reigns, or at least the popular image of it. Campbell so clearly wants to be an alpha male and he is so clearly not. He wants to be with Peggy, who seems to be her own person, instead of with his wife, who seems happy to be the doting housewife. (My sympathy extends so far: he's choosing between Alison Brie and Elisabeth Moss. You can't lose Pete)
Speaking of doting housewives, January Jones is better than I remember. I remember thinking somehow that Betty Draper worked as a character and that Jones was a terrible actress. I'll amend that to say that Jones is not a good actress, but works well within the limited range required of her in this season. But the acting never really gets in the way, because the stiff line readings work in favor of the character.
Betty doesn't have much of an arc. What is there is her inability to be happy and inability to figure out why. It's patently obvious why she's unhappy, but since her mother always emphasized the superficial aspects of happiness, she can't figure out why. She has a good husband, which seems to be the only thing her mother taught her - find a good husband. Now that that's done, now what? She wants more out of life, but doesn't appear to know it yet.
There's also Roger Sterling and Joan Holloway. Holloway isn't quite the great character she would come to be, but Christina Hendrick's performance probably shook the writer's room into making it happen in the future. She's still fascinating though because of her antiquated beliefs harvested by her ability to survive in the old way of thinking. She's both challenged by Peggy and confused by why she won't take her advice. Sterling is a character who doesn't realize he's too old to act like he's young until he has a heart attack. The rest of his character shines purely from the charm of John Slattery.
The other four - let's call them white advertising execs - don't really distinguish themselves too much with probably the exception of Salvatore Romano. It's pretty clear he's gay early on, but his confident demeanor belies the fact that he's never indulged on it. The others pretty much only have one defining feature: Ken Cosgrove is a good writer, Harry Crane is married, and Paul Kinsey is an insecure, jealous shithead.
So far, my opinion on Mad Men hasn't changed. Great show? Yes. Best of all time? It's not that I don't think it is, it's that I don't even think it's in the conversation. (I wish I was able to define why exactly I feel this why, but the jury's still out, because it would take more than one season anyway) Still don't mistake that for me not liking the show. It's an impeccably designed, expertly acted, and well-written series. I'm not sure I can ask for anything more than that.
Playlist (All songs featured in first season)
1. "On the Street Where You Live" - Vic Damone
2. "Band of Gold" - Don Cherry
2. "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" - Bob Dylan
3. "Great Divide" - The Cardigans
4. "I Can Dream, Can't I" - The Andrews Sister
5. "P.S. I Love You" - Bobby Vinton
6. "Manhattan" - Ella Fitzgerald
7. "Botch-A-Me" - Rosemary Clooney
8. "There Will Never Be Another You" - Bud Powell
9. "My Special Angel" - Bobby Helms
10. "Fly Me to Moon" - Julie London
11. "Agua de Beber" - Astrud Gilberto & Antonio Carlos Jobim
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