Rewind: Mad Men S5

With the final season of Mad Men returning 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.

Season 1
Season 2

Season 3
Season 4

The fifth season of Mad Men feels like a radical departure from previous seasons while still being undoubtedly Mad Men.  Don Draper is a dedicated husband who has lost interest in work at a time when the firm needs him more than ever.  Roger Sterling for the first time comes to a sort of peace thanks to an LSD trip.  Peggy Olsen gets promoted by another firm simply because her career would be in stasis if she were to remain at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce.  Joan Harris finally leaves Greg, realizing he's a poor excuse for a husband and lives life as a single mother.

That's not mentioning the newest principal character, Megan Calvet.  In between seasons, she became Megan Draper and got promoted into a copywriting position.  Mad Men avoids the easy route by making her both good at her job and largely uninterested in it.  She also seems to be good for Don in a way Betty clearly never was.  This may sound like a weird complaint, but I almost feel like the show went too hard in the other direction here - making her an impossibly good person so that when Don inevitably cheats on her, there's no one to blame but Don.

It's weird because I think Jessica Pare does a fantastic job as Megan - she certainly feels like a person.  But try as I might, I cannot think of one single flaw that Megan possesses.  She's certainly the opposite of Betty in most ways.  However, usually when you think of a character having no flaws, it's mostly because they don't seem like an actual person, but simply as a plot device.  Which isn't a problem here.  But Don rushed into this marriage and you wouldn't really expect him to just happen to rush into a perfect woman for him.  Let's get past that though because obviously that's what Matt Weiner is going for - Don Draper will be Don Draper no matter who he is with.

I think the arc of Don Draper is most fascinating in this season of all seasons, mostly because he finally goes through an arc.  Don has always had a thing for strong woman - I'm not really sure why he married Betty anymore as she is literally the only woman he's had an extended relationship with that doesn't seem ahead of her time.  Anyway, you'd expect philanderer Don to have a problem working with Megan, but strangely he seems happiest and most comfortable when she's working.

When Megan realizes she'd rather become an actress - with the help of her parents (which seriously how is she not more fucked up with those two?) - it seemingly devastates Don.  That's not what seems to get Don back in his natural state though.  It's after Megan asks Don to use his connections to help her land a commercial.  Don would rather she do it on her own and be independent.  Something is lost when she's relying on him to further her career.  I think he loses some respect for her.

Meanwhile, I usually don't talk about Roger Sterling this early in the post as he's more of a side character, but this is definitely the season of Roger Sterling.  For seasons, he's been feeling useless and the end of the fourth season made it official with the loss of Lucky Strike.  So here's a Roger who's actually trying to work - in his own way by stealing clients off Pete.  Pretty much the entire season is a showcase for John Slattery's charms, whether it be his feud with Pete, his LSD trip, or his post-LSD trip where is he as happy and content as he's ever been.

After roughly four years, he finally breaks up with Jane - it was clear that they've been unhappy for a while and the LSD simply enlightened him.  Basically, previously I had noticed that every Roger Sterling story bottled down to the same thing - he's increasingly useless at work and getting to an age where he can't behave like he was when he was younger - and now finally we get something new.  Hell, that's kind of a theme with this season I suppose - Don has new storylines, Megan's a new wife to Don, and Roger.

Plus, Joan finally escapes her awful, domineering husband.  It took him deciding to volunteer for an extra year in Vietnam for her to realize it, but nonetheless it is still a welcome surprise.  At work, she's clearly one of the most vital people, making Lane Pryce essentially useless because she performs most of his job duties.  At home, with the help of her mother, she is learning how to raise a child in a time when being a single mother was most certainly looked down upon.  And I have little doubt when I start season six later, that she will have found herself another man - if not as a husband, at least a potential one.  (Foreshadowed by that great scene at the bar between Joan and Don - which if Megan's reaction afterward is any indication, he won't get away with the same shit he did with Betty, but he'll try)

Another thing Joan experiences is that she's made partner because she sleeps with a client to land an account.  This is strongly encouraged and manipulated by Pete, who's never seemed more dickish than that episode.  Don opposes, but it doesn't matter.  I will say that if there's one character who would get over this fast, it's Joan.  I'm not even sure it will weigh on her given her attitude as the head of secretaries, but this being Mad Men, it could go either way.

Speaking of Lane, he finds his role in the company in doubt since his main function was to transition companies to be more efficient.  Well, this company can't really be more efficient and seems to be mostly skating by from account to account.  Joan handles the finances and day-to-day leaving not much for Lane to do.  One of the better established traits of Lane is that he loves America - ever since he was threatened with going to India, we've known he wants to stay.  Thanks to his move from England, his $50,000 deposit, and his tax troubles, Lane is potentially at risk with leaving.  So instead of asking for the money - probably due to pride -he embezzles money out to pay his taxes.

When it's discovered, it's not a surprise that he would rather stop living life than have to uproot and face the humiliation.  If there's one weakness to his story, it's that the show kind of piled on him in his last episode.  His wife gives him the car and he gets a position in some esteemed club at the exact moment when everything falls to shit for him?  I will say that I did however enjoy that the piece of shit car that won't start causes his suicide attempt to fail.  Enjoy is perhaps harsh, but there's a cruel sense of humor in that.

Peggy meanwhile remains with Abe Drexler from last season.  She gets excited at the prospect of marrying Abe - though probably more due to the societal expectation - but he only asks if he can move in with her.  Apparently, that was highly frowned upon back then, because her mother does not respond well.  But because she is Peggy Olsen, she does it anyway.  I'm interested to see the sixth season version of Peggy Olsen, because her in a new work environment could be one of the most interesting plot developments of her character.

Pete is more Pete than he's ever been.  Despite being responsible for most of the accounts at the firm, he still doesn't have enough.  He has an affair with his fellow train commuter's wife - who to be fair is one of the most giant pieces of shit Mad Men has ever had and that's saying something.  Pete had made something of a comeback from his first season character - mostly because he goes from a spoiled, entitled brat to one who's good at his job.  Being good at your job will make people forgive a lot of your sins.  Well, this season Matt Weiner seemed to remind the audience why Pete sucks.

This may sound harsh, but this season might have been my favorite season and I can't help but think Betty appearing in only four of them has something to do with it.  She gets her own win in the episode when she's there for Sally when she unexpectedly has her first period.  But in order to gain the audience sympathy, the writers gave her a cancer scare and made her overweight.  First off, I can't imagine her letting herself go like that due to her outsized focus on her appearance.  It would have made more sense after she had her kid in my opinion.  Secondly, her compulsion to stress eat came literally out of nowhere.  She's never had that problem.  Mad Men is usually good at setting the groundwork, but they needed something for January Jones to do when she's not dealing with Don so they created this out of thin air.  And lastly, the makeup is completely unconvincing to the point of distraction.

But I went into this season - this is my first season that I've written about that I have not seen before - with little expectations.  I don't know if I thought Mad Men declined, but subconsciously I must have, because I was surprised at how good this season was.  I suppose I just naturally assumed due to the nature of how TV shows usually work.  Nonetheless, season five so far is probably my favorite mostly from the new directions several characters take.  It's my favorite take on Don, it establishes an interesting new character in Megan, Roger has never been better, Peggy's still Peggy, and Betty is marginalized (which - look her character is good, but there's not really anywhere new to take her character at this point - she'll forever be unhappy and she'll probably never grow)

- Because these posts are so long, I'm never able to expound on the acting so I'll just say it here.  Jon Hamm, Elisabeth Moss, Christina Hendricks, Jared Harris, and Vincent Kartheiser are all excellent.  I think Kartheiser is perhaps the most underrated of the bunch.  (I already mentioned Slattery above)

- Ken Cosgrove is the most normal, well-adjusted person in this show so there's not much interesting things about him.  His actions when Sterling Cooper Draper Harris (is that the name now?) land his father-in-law accounts was a notable exception where he made sure Pete was in no way a part of it.  I like Aaron Staton's work and I like the character a lot.  Who knew, from the first season, he'd be the most likable person on this show or at least the one who you could easily imagine being friends with?

- Harry Crane's de-evolution is nearly complete.  I heard his character from seasons 1-4 and 5-7 are completely different and he's gone the full way towards being a lousy person.  He's always been clueless, but here he shows no remorse at cheating on his wife.  His episode with Paul Kinsey was certainly interesting as he did a good thing for his friend, sending him away from the cult, while still being Harry Crane.

- I hope I will be able to talk about him more in next season's review, but Michael Ginsberg is probably the quickest character to instantly be compelling as a side ad man.  The loss of Peggy might be felt in the firm, but both due to the talent and the character, the show will be alright.  Good work from Ben Feldman.

- Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce accidentally becomes progressive in hiring a black secretary.  That's a pretty smart way of doing that because no way would they do this on their own and Mad Men writers probably still wanted to do that.

- Alexis Bledel - never seen Gilmore Girls - but she's not that impressive here.

Playlist
1. "Zou Bisou Bisou" - Gillian Hills (sung by Megan)
2. "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me" - Dusty Springfield
3. "Ebb Tide" - Ken Griffin
4. "Sixteen Going on Seventeen" - Rolf and Liesl
5. "He Hit Me (And It Felt Like a Kiss)" - The Crystals
6. "I Just Wasn't Made for These Times" - The Beach Boys
7. "I Want to Hold Your Hand" - The Beatles (whistled by Don)
8. "September in the Rain" - The Wedgewoods
9. "Tomorrow Never Knows" - The Beatles
10. "Sweeping the Clouds Away" - Maurice Chevalier
11. "The Christmas Waltz" - Doris Day
12. "You Really Got Me" - The Kinks
13. "Butchie's Tune" - The Lovin' Spoonful
14. "You Only Live Twice" - Nancy Sinatra

Rewind: Mad Men S3

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.

Season 1
Season 2

As I expected, Mad Men has taken a step back from character arcs in the third season.  The characters aren't changing as much from the beginning of the season to the end of the season like previous ones.  Betty Draper makes the move towards becoming an independent woman, Peggy Olson keeps trying new things to different results, Pete Campbell grows up ever so slowly, and Don Draper stays the same mostly.

Yet again, the Draper marriage takes up a large portion of the season.  Three months after the end of the second season, they appear amicable with Don mostly trying hard to please Betty to little avail.  It doesn't last of course - not only does Don initiate an affair with Sally's teacher - but Betty has a small affair of her own (albeit with no actual sex.)

The marriage is less interesting than one of the defining moments of the season: when Don opens up to Betty about who he really is.  She's the first person he reveals the mostly complete truth about his past as Dick Whitman with very few omissions.  (Naturally, he leaves out his extensive list of woman he's cheated on her with).  And then after he's opened up with her, she leaves him.  Don Draper is sure to go back to his old self if there was any hope before.  (And really there wasn't that much hope.)

Meanwhile at Sterling Cooper, they are bought out by the British ad agency, PPL, with Lane Pryce serving as a liaison.  His tactics prove effective and crude when he purposefully plays Campbell against Ken Cosgrove.  Campbell proves his own usual, whiny self in his reaction to the admittedly underhanded move.  This of course is concluded when Pete calls in sick to interview for another job and he finally gets validation from Don Draper that he wants Pete.

Speaking of the that, "Shut the Door, Have a Seat" is the best Mad Men episode so far and second place isn't close.  Mad Men rarely allows for thrilling and exciting episodes, but that episode is one of the most awesome they've ever done.  The characters rush to make a new company and it's basically a "bring the team together" episode, which I unapologetically love.  My opinion of Mad Men in the annals of classic TV rose solely due to this episode.

Roger Sterling spends the third season deluding himself into believing he's happy with an inferior replacement for Joan, who he really wants to be with.  He has this sense of uselessness pervade throughout the season, culminating in his decision to ultimately help start a new company.  Joan marries a rich doctor, or at least that's what she thought she married.  Unfortunately, her husband proves incompetent and Joan is forced to go back to work.  Although, the new company is a blessing in actuality as its clear she doesn't really want to quit her job (despite attempts to convince herself).  Her husband's financial failures are less of a problem than that he's an abusive asshole.

It's actually funny in hindsight that the writers seem to come to a narrative endpoint with most of its characters.  Joan would never have worked for Sterling Cooper again, Roger was essentially useless in his role, Pete and Peggy seemed to be on his way out sooner rather than later, and Lane was forced to move to a new country if kept at his position with PPL.  Hell, even Don was in the much-feared contract that he was forced to sign which was ironically how he was able to get fired and start the new company.

For the third season, Jared Harris was a great addition, providing a character longing for stability who is the classic company man.  He does everything they want him to do, which means they give him all the positions that nobody else wants.  His wife wants to move back to England, but he just wants to stay in one place so he can have a life.

Ultimately, I don't have a lot to say about this season.  I couldn't say whether this was my favorite season - this show is remarkably consistent if nothing else - but it featured my favorite episode by far.  Ever so slightly, my opinion of this show is rising and at this rate, I may actually consider it one of the best shows of all-time.

Playlist
1. "To Be Loved" - The Pentagons
2. "Bye Bye Birdie" - Ann-Margret
3. "Memories of You" - Ben Webster
4. "Me Voy a Morir de Tanto Amor" - Alberto Iglesias
5. "Song to Woody" - Bob Dylan
6. "Sixteen Tons" - Tennessee Ernie Ford
7. "Dominque" - Singing Nuns
8. "Where is Love" - Oliver
9. "The End of the World" - Skeeter Davis
10. "Shahdaroba" - Roy Orbison

Rewind: Mad Men S2

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.

Season 1

Mad Men is one of the hardest shows for me to write about.  The other hardest show is The Simpsons.  In a way, it's hard to write about them for the same reason: it's pretty damn hard to write about a show specifically designed for episodic analysis.  Episodic analysis has become somewhat popular in recent years.  Any good show, regardless of the need, has a post from AV Club, HitFix, or any number of well-visited television-themed sites hours after the episode airs, analyzing and grading that specific episode.  Most of the shows don't need it.  I enjoy it if it's from a good writer, but really most of the time I'm just wanting to find the perspective of another person and compare it to my own.

Mad Men (and The Simpsons) benefits from post-episode analysis, assuming the writer is given a screener and allowed time to reflect on the episode.  (This is why it's hard for me.  I don't get screeners, thus I'll inevitably miss something.  Plus if I actually take the time necessary to uncover all the depths of an episode, it'll need to be posted the day later, thus removing the timeliness aspect.)  Mad Men is designed in such a way where each episode can stand alone with its own themes.  That's not to say that you can watch any old episode out of order.  But there's always this weird sense of finality when the episode is over that most serialized shows don't provide.  (While The Sopranos dabbled in this, I don't think I can say the same about it.)

I guess this is my way of saying Mad Men is growing on me.  I've made it clear in my previous post that I really enjoy Mad Men, but I can't elevate it to the best shows of all time.  I'm not sure I'll change my opinion, but the second season was just as good as the first, and arguably more impressive an achievement.  Since Mad Men is in essence a show about characters, the only way for me to look at this season is by revisiting all the characters and see their progression.

Don Draper doesn't exactly progress as a character.  It's more like Matt Weiner and the writers reveal more of the character.  Whatever happened in between the end of season one and the beginning of season two - probably Betty finding out Don has been calling her psychiatrist - the dynamics of the Draper marriage have changed significantly.  Don Draper appears to be very sincere and very intent on staying committed to Betty.  But of course that can't happen.  The very things that make Don Draper who he is prevent him from ever staying committed.  To his credit, it's not totally his fault.  Take a verifiable philanderer and give him a woman who might as well show up naked to his bed, he's just not going to say no.

Interestingly enough, this is a different affair from the first season.  He does not seem to enjoy it or even like Bobbie Barrett.  He just can't resist.  Don hasn't exactly grown this season, but he certainly makes a more concerted effort to remain faithful and be a good husband.  Too bad the timing could not have been worse.  Draper's actions in the second season would have gone unnoticed by Betty in the first season.  Hell, she probably would have appreciated him more because of them.  But Betty has changed.

Betty has infinitely more control than she ever had in season one.  But she's still basically a child at the start of the season like she was in season one.  She flirts with the idea of affairs, but does so in a way that a child would and immediately backs off whenever it seems to go anywhere.  And in her cruelest moment of the series thus far, she facilitates an affair between her two stable friends because she's too chicken to do it herself AND then she gets to feel morally superior by shaming her friend.  It's terrible.

Like I've stressed, I remember less about specific details in the third and fourth season and especially so for character progression, but I would guess Betty will be "grown up" in the third season.  Actually participating in affair was emotionally cathartic and allows her to finally start eating.  Couple that with her very mature talk with Sally about what her and Don are going through and I think she's becoming a responsible mother as well.  (I'll forgive her for her antiquated punishments which are probably a sign of the times more than her abilities as a mother.)  Thus, when she accepts Don back, it doesn't feel like a cheat like it could have.

Small note: I'm also looking for my opinion on January Jones, which upon first viewing was not positive.  I was much more impressed with Jones in the first season than I expected.  The second season? Eh.  The cracks are starting to show.  I continued to be genuinely surprised by her until the middle of the season.  I want to say "A Night to Remember."  The rest of the episodes were better, but I think that colored my opinion of her performance in a negative way to where I could never get back to that pleasant surprise.  Ah well.

In the first season, Peggy and Pete were arguably the most important characters behind Don Draper.  Peggy was making her transformation from meek secretary to devoted advertising copywriter.  Pete didn't exactly have as drastic of a transformation, but Mad Men spent a lot of time uncovering the complexities of his character.  This season, both characters' change between seasons, but not really throughout the season.

Peggy Olsen may as well have renamed herself Peggy Draper, because she takes the misguided advice of Don Draper and follows in his footsteps.  Much like Don forgot his past life as Dick Whitman, Peggy forgets her pregnancy and subsequent adoption.  She even takes the advice of a priest, albeit in a way he didn't intend, when she confesses to Pete that she had his baby.  At the end of the season, her actions of emulating Don Draper have led to her own office and she shows no signs of changing that either.

Pete meanwhile finds out his father died in an airplane crash.  Don Draper doesn't exactly care for Pete's feelings, but he at first gives him the counsel he needs to find out how humans react.  But after Duck tries to get Pete to use his father's death to land American Airlines, Don is in a much different mood and shakes him off.  Later on, when Draper disappears in California, Pete doesn't turn him in like he would have in the first season.  And he readily accepts his father-in-law dropping the Clearasil account, because the only reason he even got the account was under the pretext that the Campbells would have a baby.  When Don genuinely praises him for his work, he decides to side with Don over Duck, mostly because Don's praise means everything to Pete.

The Duck-Don rivalry was the crux of the second season.  Duck is envious of the amount of control Don seems to have over Sterling Cooper while Don is defensive of Duck's search for power.  They also seem to have ideological differences about how to approach advertising.  All of this leads to the desperate, yet nearly successful attempt by Duck to have Sterling Cooper sold to an overseas corporation.  In somewhat of an anticlimatic moment that nonetheless is as satisfying as anything on this show, Don simply says "I have no contract" to shut down Duck's plans.

Duck Phillips was a great addition to the cast.  He's a recovering alcoholic who is frustrated that his talent does not match his position.  Due to his alcoholism, he's not exactly a great foil to Don Draper (as it's pretty clear which one will win the impending battle), but he stands out as a character in his own right.  Plus, he's contrasted with Freddy Rumsen, a person whose alcoholism eventually gets him fired.  Actually, he's contrasted with just about everyone in the office, who by modern-day standards surely qualify as an alcoholic.  I'm guessing Duck just doesn't quite handle the alcohol as well as the others.

Lastly, in terms of characters who I'll spend a paragraph talking about, Joan Holloway unfortunately seems to develop in much the way that is expected, in hindsight at least (that's not a complaint.  It's unfortunate because it sucks).  In the first season, there's a hint that she wants more out of the office judging by her jealousy of Peggy's quick rise.  She's given a chance her and is excellent at it, but nobody even thinks she wants it.  What's sad is that if she spoke up, she might be able to get that job, but that's not the type of thing she would do.

Worse, she now has a fiancee who is completely uninterested in Joan being anything other than a housewife.  That was a forgivable sin, because at least you could blame the time period.  But then he rapes Joan in Don's office in one of the most harrowing scenes in television.  And then... she remains with her fiance.  I honestly don't remember anything about Joan past this season so I'm really hoping for more positive storylines for her.

Now, because Mad Men seems to spend time on each character, I'll have to bullet point the rest of the characters.

- Salvatore Romano gets married to a person he seems to truly love, although is completely uninterested in sexually due to his homosexuality.  He and his wife host dinner with Ken Cosgrove, which is the closest he can get to intimacy with a man.  (Masters of Sex also has a sexually repressed gay man married to a woman and a sexually repressed housewife.  In my opinion, MoS does both better, in one case due to better acting (housewife) and the other due to more time spent on it.)

- Ken Cosgrove seems like much less of a creep than when first presented.  Once again, he writes a short story, and while Sal's maybe not the most objective person, it seems genuinely good.

- Paul Kinsey is Mad Men's gateway to civil rights and... well his interests seem less about actual interest and more about showing off how progressive he is.  Joan calls him out for exactly why he's dating a black woman, which is somewhat painful to watch because her speech is pretty racist, but she is completely correct.

- Harry Crane becomes head of television, apparently has resolved his issues with his wife, and is set to become a father.  His disapproval with the civil rights march and his opinion on homosexuality plummet his character down from the seemingly good guy in season one.

- Roger meanwhile leaves his wife for Don's secretary.  His looming divorce leads him to be eager to sell Sterling Cooper.  It's pretty clear Jane Siegel is simply a replacement Joan Holloway since he can't have Joan.  John Slattery continues to steal scenes even when he doesn't have anything significant to do.

- The young talent Duck brings in doesn't make a huge impression, but their arrival is completely worth it solely for the scene when everybody finds out Kurt is gay.  That's one of the funniest scenes the show has ever done.

Looking back at the second season, it's actually kind of impressive how Draper-focused it was.  The three main recurring storylines throughout were the Draper marriage, the Duck-Don rivalry, and Don Draper's past.  Peggy's ascension was more background than at the forefront and Pete was majorly featured in just two or three episodes.  But basically, the second season is all Don Draper.

The past life into Dick Whitman not only provides a chance for Jon Hamm to flex his acting talent, but it's also interesting just because here's a person he's totally comfortable being Dick Whitman around.  Dick Whitman seems a hell of a lot more healthy about who he is - I'm not sure he could rise to where he is in the advertising world, but I do feel like he'd be happier.  Either way, I think the show makes it pretty clear that Don's path to success - forget the past - hurts him.  That doesn't seem like good news for Peggy at this point.

Playlist
1. "Let's Twist Again" - Chubby Checker
2. "Temptation is Hard to Fight" - George McGregor & The Bronzettes
3. "Lollipops and Roses" - Jack Jones
4. "Blue Room" - Perry Como
5. "Theme from a Summer Place" - Percy Faith
6. "Infanta" - The Decemberists
7. "Break it to Me Gently" - Brenda Lee
8. "I'm in Love" - The Pentagons
9. "Early in the Morning" - Peter, Paul, & Mary
10. "Telstar" - The Tornados
11. "Misirlou" - Martin Denny
12. "Cup of Loneliness" - George Jones
13. "Stranger on the Shore" - Acker Bilk

Rewind: Mad Men S1

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