Let’s Fold Scarves

…you people tell me that I’m good with people…

Mad Men - “New Amsterdam”

We discover why Pete was described as being good with people when we find out how well connected he is on his mother’s side. Is he a bit dim as well as ambitious? He failed at both attempts to be in control. I think this series is about the struggle that men and women face in a world of changing gender expectations. The fact that Pete’s importance comes via his mother is continued through to his wife getting her own way. He thinks he should be the boss but he isn’t.

Don’s boss looked like Colonel Saunders.

The scenes between Betty and Glen, Helen’s son, were creepy and sad. I’m not sure she should have given him the lock of hair because that seems inappropriately encouraging.

I have decided that January Jones is not a smoker.

This series feels like reading a novel or watching a (really long) film. I have no idea how much is made up on the fly and how much is pre-planned.

Posted in Mad Men, Television | No Comments »

…and the book just opens to those pages by itself

Mad Men “Marriage of Figaro”

A relatively undramatic episode but we learned some interesting snippets.

• Don may be a Dick (actually we discover when he does the dirty on his daughter during her party that he is definitely a dick).
• Pete was quite likeable but I suspect that won’t last.
• Betty is a nice person who doesn’t indulge in the dissing of Helen (and she did invite the divorcee over after all) and went to Bryn Mawr which goes a long way to explaining why she can’t pull her rubber gloves off.

Is this the last of Rachel? Or will she succumb to the Don charm? I hope not even though I like her character and Maggie Siff in the part.

The Chinese people in the office joke seemed flat both on screen and in my reaction to it. I don’t really get it. Though I did enjoy Rachel negotiating the chicken as she leaves the office.

I thought the Lady Chatterley’s Lover scene was very funny with great delivery of the “there’s a few good parts, that’s all…” line by Christina Hendricks.

It is notable that the most attractive characters are the most modern so I liked Helen.

It meandered to a close with Don’s moping not particularly gripping me.

Not, I suspect, anyone’s favourite episode and hopefully the worst.

Posted in Mad Men, Television | No Comments »

Doctors must love that they finally have an answer for “I don’t know what’s wrong”

Mad Men “Ladies Room”

Another good episode although the series doesn’t seem as subtle as I expected it to be: gay Sal still grates and January Jones is being asked to wear her unhappiness like a badge.

I’m a little surprised that on the cusp of the sixties that a woman would be expected to get over the death of her mother in a mere three months though apparently this is what Betty ought to have done.

Don’s purchase of a watch for Betty seemed the height of crassness but that’s par for the course at Sterling Cooper. I’m interested that ad men are being portrayed as boorish oafs who say out loud and often how little they know or care about women (and indeed anything else) in an industry that is supposed to understand how people tick in an effort to sell them something.

I’m not keen on Midge (Barbara Bel Geddes’ name in Vertigo (1958)) - she hasn’t interested me yet.

I can’t wait for Peggy to tell Joan where to shove it. I assume that will happen in the future - it had better! I like Peggy a lot more in this episode - except for the inexplicable Pete fixation - she is now more clearly our character to root for.

Andy and I wondered if Paul (based entirely on the Twilight Zone reference) was going to be the only nice man in the office but he turned out to be a “nice guy(R)” instead.

I thought this moment was hilarious:

Posted in Mad Men, Television | No Comments »

You were expecting me to be a man. My father was, too.

Observations on Mad Men “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”

I am practically unspoiled regarding Mad Men and so I thought I would blog my random thoughts regarding each episode as we watch them.

The first episode was promising though I do have a major problem straightaway in that it is going to have to be about more than advertising to maintain my interest past the first few episodes. The problem with Studio 60 was that it was about a sketch show and after three interminable episodes I just could not bring myself to care about the characters agonising over its weekly production (although it was Dave Mason’s “Will You Love Me Tomorrow” at the end of the third episode that really sealed the deal).

It looked authentic although there perhaps wasn’t the right amount of fug that so much smoking would have produced and certainly the stripper looked like her body was all hers.

The closeted gay man was rather laughably overdone: it was so obvious as soon as he produced the drawing of his neighbour. The other executives seemed more realistic and except for a bit of toning down of the overt sexism they could be modern characters.

I hope that Joan (Christina Kendricks) is actually a Saffron like character - subverting from within rather than genuinely believing it all.

I assumed that Peggy was going to be the character we were naturally going to root for. The nice girl who was not going to succumb to the societal norms of the time. Instead she did take creepy Pete into her room after being rejected by Don.

I liked Rachel - mainly because she was the most modern woman in the programme - which brings me to the accusations of misogyny and sexism I do know that Mad Men has been accused of. My first reaction is that I don’t think the sexism (misogyny is far too strong a word) and the other isms have been presented in a Life on Mars way which, far too often for me, felt like it relished being as sexist and racist as it could. I think, so far, Mad Men, is trying to show how it was in many workplaces.

Don is intriguing: he already seems well-rounded and I want to know how his relations with the women in his life proceed. I guessed very belatedly that he was married.

Vincent Kartheiser as Pete looks so young and also a bit like Christopher Walken and I hope we are never supposed to like him.

I think Rachel’s line about hard it is to be a man may be the most significant line of the series.

I felt a bit uncomfortable watching it because it was so sexist and that made me fiddle with my toes a lot.

As a first episode/pilot, I liked it more than Damages or Heroes or Studio 60 or Ugly Betty or Battlestar Galactica so I am hopeful for the next few programmes. However, I loved the first episode of Pushing Daisies and I eventually gave that up.

Posted in Mad Men, Television | No Comments »