"Mad Men" on AMC (US) - (Spoilers Within)

[Young fogey]

Good point, Doctor Strange

Thanks, Doctor Strange. I forgot about that angle: both she and they were young, attractive and upper-class so she identified with them.

 

[PADDY]

A GREAT SHOW.

Roger is absolutely faithful..to his 'name!' (Sterling fella!)
Pete is an absolute business 'light-weight' & 'limp squid' with an inadequecy 'chip' on his shoulders and quite frankly is born to lose both at home and in the office.
Don is a DON in the business (the public viewed) world. But his private, personal life is a destructive cocktail ride of emotions that will ultimately be the end of him. He's in self destruct mode.
Betty hasn't found her role in life yet, emotionally, professionally or sexually, but for now, she's great 'eye candy' as the Americans say. Loads of room for character development there! her husk of a character needs filling.
Will Salv be back? doubt it. Irrespective of his sexuality, he lacked the drive, ambition and nerve for Sterling-Cooper to invest their time in him. His professional life was reflected somewhat in his personal life. No happy ending for him, sadly.

And I *bet* every person swallowed up in this series will have their own interpretations and views on the characters and the storylines, which makes it so GREAT!! be boring if we all sang from the same hymn sheet!

Clothes, sets and camera work are just marvellous!! :eusa_clap Roll on the next series.

 

[Young fogey]

Roger is absolutely faithful..to his 'name!' (Sterling fella!)
Pete is an absolute business 'light-weight' & 'limp squid' with an inadequecy 'chip' on his shoulders and quite frankly is born to lose both at home and in the office.
Don is a DON in the business (the public viewed) world. But his private, personal life is a destructive cocktail ride of emotions that will ultimately be the end of him. He's in self destruct mode.
Betty hasn't found her role in life yet, emotionally, professionally or sexually, but for now, she's great 'eye candy' as the Americans say. Loads of room for character development there! her husk of a character needs filling.
Will Salv be back? doubt it. Irrespective of his sexuality, he lacked the drive, ambition and nerve for Sterling-Cooper to invest their time in him. His professional life was reflected somewhat in his personal life. No happy ending for him, sadly.

And I *bet* every person swallowed up in this series will have their own interpretations and views on the characters and the storylines, which makes it so GREAT!! be boring if we all sang from the same hymn sheet!

Clothes, sets and camera work are just marvellous!! :eusa_clap Roll on the next series.

Good analysis.

Don's usually very careful about keeping his business and personal lives separate (rightly so, as shown by Betts' fight with him when Bobbi Barrett crossed that line with him) but I can imagine his personal life catching up with him and derailing him.

I add that Paul Kinsey is educational to watch: the social lesson is that what gives him away, as not the sophisticate he wants you to think he is, is that although he's smart and cultured he cares desperately what others think of him and calls them on it, which is unmanly too. Like when he whined to Joan who sees right through him ('you're wearing that Negro girl like your ascot').

Pete's got the same insecurity but without Paul's posturing because he is what Paul pretends to be: to the manor born.

Like everybody here I don't want to see the golden age end on the show but I'm still curious. Who will flip out with the changing times and who won't? Obviously Paul probably will hippie out. Pete might if he still had a safety cushion of inherited wealth. But he doesn't so he won't. (The hippies essentially were a bunch of slumming rich kids looking for a good time, part of the postwar baby boom of course, who could come back to mainstream society whenever they wanted, which of course they did, destroying much and accomplishing little.) Besides, he's too ambitious (though not very good at it) to do that. Peggy? She's weirdly modern now, sleeping around more than Joan probably did when she was single, but probably not; she's accomplished too much to throw it all away and go to lotus-land with drugs, unemployment etc. Joan? I can see her and the unlucky doctor splitting (he just joined the Army; maybe he gets killed in Vietnam) but she won't go radical; she doesn't need the empowerment it claimed to offer. Like Peggy in a way she's already accomplished. Betts might go feminist and leave Don or live happily ever after with Henry if her neuroses don't drive him away. Sal coming out and becoming a swinging '70s gay? Probably not for the reasons you said; he's too scared but at least he probably won't get Aids. But Kitty will leave him. Don and Roger? I can see Don ending up like another don, Michael Corleone, rich and surviving but heartbroken and alone. (A shame because he really loves his kids.) But... he and Roger will be wearing hats into the '70s and we hope longer. No helmet hair, sideburns or garish unmanly clothes for either of them. Probably wider ties and that's it. I can see Roger and Jane breaking up (but maybe not as she matures) but he'll find someone else.

 

[Doctor Strange]

It's the best show on the air now, IMHO. I just rewatched the whole thing on DVD with my 17-year-old daughter over a couple of months, and was even more blown away... if that's possible.

I am also curious to see how Don and Betty react to "the sixties". Although Don is older and essentially conservative, he's been shown to have a more open side with his interest in foreign films, and experiences with Midge and her beatnik friends, those crazy Jet Set folks in CA, and proto-hippie Miss Farrell. And now that he's living in Manhattan...

But I don't see Betty the Stepford Wife embracing the new freedoms - just look at the stiff she wants to marry! Of course, they are obviously setting up Sally (who was just bumped up from recurring character to series regular) to be the rebellious teenager in another of season or two, especially with her having to deal with the fallout from her parents' divorce.

Peggy and Joan are the ones who will be primed for Women's Lib when it comes... if the show runs for that long!

Despite his "forward thinkig", I think Pete will dig in with the old school. Kinsey's an interesting case - if he remains a recurring character, which is hardly a given with the way last season ended.

Oh, and Young fogey: understand that it was very possible to embrace the liberal ideas of the sixties/seventies without going into full degenerate hippie mode. My parents were in their 50s then, and despite having both served in WWII, they were all for most of the new ideas (even if their musical taste never embraced rock or neo-folk). There was a lot more variation to people's responses than it may seem now in the simplified Wikipedia and I Love The Sixties view of the time that prevails...

 

[Young fogey]

Oh, and Young fogey: understand that it was very possible to embrace the liberal ideas of the sixties/seventies without going into full degenerate hippie mode. My parents were in their 50s then, and despite having both served in WWII, they were all for most of the new ideas (even if their musical taste never embraced rock or neo-folk). There was a lot more variation to people's responses than it may seem now in the simplified Wikipedia and I Love The Sixties view of the time that prevails...

I do. Thanks. A reason I like the golden age; the liberals were like Don that way.

 

[Mr Vim]

I am still working my way through the third season, so I have to be careful what I read.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Oops! Sorry 'bout that!

I wish I was working my way through the third season for the first time!

 

[swinggal]

Only about a month til Season 4. Hoorah!!!

 

[Bustercat]

Good analysis.

Don's usually very careful about keeping his business and personal lives separate (rightly so, as shown by Betts' fight with him when Bobbi Barrett crossed that line with him) but I can imagine his personal life catching up with him and derailing him.

I add that Paul Kinsey is educational to watch: the social lesson is that what gives him away, as not the sophisticate he wants you to think he is, is that although he's smart and cultured he cares desperately what others think of him and calls them on it, which is unmanly too. Like when he whined to Joan who sees right through him ('you're wearing that Negro girl like your ascot').

Pete's got the same insecurity but without Paul's posturing because he is what Paul pretends to be: to the manor born.

Like everybody here I don't want to see the golden age end on the show but I'm still curious. Who will flip out with the changing times and who won't? Obviously Paul probably will hippie out. Pete might if he still had a safety cushion of inherited wealth. But he doesn't so he won't. (The hippies essentially were a bunch of slumming rich kids looking for a good time, part of the postwar baby boom of course, who could come back to mainstream society whenever they wanted, which of course they did, destroying much and accomplishing little.) Besides, he's too ambitious (though not very good at it) to do that. Peggy? She's weirdly modern now, sleeping around more than Joan probably did when she was single, but probably not; she's accomplished too much to throw it all away and go to lotus-land with drugs, unemployment etc. Joan? I can see her and the unlucky doctor splitting (he just joined the Army; maybe he gets killed in Vietnam) but she won't go radical; she doesn't need the empowerment it claimed to offer. Like Peggy in a way she's already accomplished. Betts might go feminist and leave Don or live happily ever after with Henry if her neuroses don't drive him away. Sal coming out and becoming a swinging '70s gay? Probably not for the reasons you said; he's too scared but at least he probably won't get Aids. But Kitty will leave him. Don and Roger? I can see Don ending up like another don, Michael Corleone, rich and surviving but heartbroken and alone. (A shame because he really loves his kids.) But... he and Roger will be wearing hats into the '70s and we hope longer. No helmet hair, sideburns or garish unmanly clothes for either of them. Probably wider ties and that's it. I can see Roger and Jane breaking up (but maybe not as she matures) but he'll find someone else.

Are you really that eager to test the 'no politics' policy around here? Because you aren't impressing anyone.

The 70s are a world and a half away. Hippies won't exist on this show, you'll have to settle for beatniks.
And the closest any of the characters are going to get to love beads and tie dye is probably Paul's beard and neckerchief. This is the EARLY 60s, not the summer of love.

 

[PADDY]

really...???

Only about a month til Season 4. Hoorah!!!

So soon?..I can't wait!! The great thing about the internet now is that you can watch it 'just after' AMC shows it in the States! (takes too far long for it to 'eventually' get to the UK).

 

[Young fogey]

Are you really that eager to test the 'no politics' policy around here? Because you aren't impressing anyone.

The 70s are a world and a half away. Hippies won't exist on this show, you'll have to settle for beatniks. And the closest any of the characters are going to get to love beads and tie dye is probably Paul's beard and neckerchief. This is the EARLY 60s, not the summer of love.

Thanks for the no-politics reminder.

To each his own.

Of course I know the show is set in the later part of the golden age and nobody here wants to change that as I said earlier. But many online have wondered where the characters would be 10, 15 or 20 years later.

Doctor Strange answered well: unlike the strip-cartoon version of 'the '60s' many people adopted some of the new ideas without becoming degenerates or fashion victims for that matter. For example Peggy's obviously a feminist of the period (I've known women from the era who were sort of like that) and Joan's being primed for women's lib too. Another: the sexual revolution/women's lib actually will be a happy hunting ground for alpha men like Don and Roger: recreational-sex heaven for them (affairs made much easier) marketed as empowerment for women, so clever you wonder if Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce came up with it.

And I too can see Sally rebelling in the '70s, something as much if not more to do with her family's personalities (Betts's coldness and resentment of her own children) and circumstances as changes in the larger culture. The second would be the battleground on which the war of the first is fought.

I can see Betts and Henry becoming scions of the old-money Rockefeller Republicans (like the Bushes) in the '70s and later.

 

[vintage68]

Just recently started watching this show on DVD, and finished Season One last night. Excellent.

 

[Doctor Strange]

If you're just at the end of season one, you shouldn't be reading this spoiler-engorged thread!

But yeah, best show of the decade!

 

[MrBern]

One month til premiere

andthe press is starting

 

[AmateisGal]

andthe press is starting

So PUMPED for the season premiere!

 

[Mr Vim]

Did anyone follow the previous season on Itunes, was each episode made available for download when the it debuted or was it all at once at a later date?

This will be the only way I can watch the show so I must know!

 

[swinggal]

Preview of Season 4 people.

http://blogs.amctv.com/videos/player.php?bclid=82069251001&bctid=104611124001

 

[Tomasso]

Attention: AT&T Subscribers

Carriage Dispute Threatens 'Mad Men' Debut

 

[habberdasher]

Carriage Dispute Threatens 'Mad Men' Debut

Read it don't matter for me though got comcast

 

[Mr Vim]

Dig, I'm ordering a season pass on Itunes, which by the way, is now available!