Mad Men.

But it would look entirely wrong if no-one smoked on the show, highly historically inaccurate :confused:

Isn't there some caveat regarding smoking being able to be shown if it is artistically intrinsic to the piece? Which it obviously is in the case of 'Mad Men', as it would be ludicrous if the characters adhered to current ideas of acceptable behaviour in terms of smoking, drinking ,etc. Come to think of it, the casual approach to drink-driving is perhaps the most shocking aspect of the show, to me anyway.
 
I don't think Don's behaviour is a reflection on Betty. Or, indeed, on any of the other women he has affairs with. For me, it's about a man who is living a life that isn't really his; he's on the run from who he actually is and careering aimlessly (and it is aimlessly) from one woman to the next is just an echo of that.

Plus I think (and am told by people who lived through that era) that men did behave like that then - because they thought they could get away with it. In tonight's episode, we saw three woman suffer in silence and alone. No support networks, no group bitching ... that culture just didn't exist then.
 
Having worked with advertising agencies in my late teens for a North American company in the West End of London in the sixties, I 've enjoyed these series.

I particularly notice the office equipment, office furniture and the layout of the offices. So very typical, as my firm had moved into a brand new building with similar features. In the old building there were pre-war wooden desks etc., so everything was really "modern."

I occasional attended presentations given by rival advertising agencies, to the one we used, soliciting our business. (My boss couldn't be bothered).
I enjoyed my first taste of caviar at one of these.
 
Great catch with the phone calls! I hadn't thought of that at all. While we're at it, don't forget the blood stains on Joan's dress from the lawnmower incident.
 
Good isn't it. I loved Peggy this week too. So funny and yet touching at the same time. As for Roger Stirling telling Joan that she was the best piece of ass he had ever been with and he didn't regret any of it....................................
 
Top Five Overblown American Imports:
The trailers are slick, the casts are strewn with A Listers and TV staples, the cinematography is of the highest calibre...Doh!-Someone forgot to include a decent storyline...

Starting from the top-

1 : Dirty Sexy Money
2 : Pushing Daisys
3 : Deadwood
4 : (Season 3) Desperate Housewives

And last of all - Mad Men.
This is an artful case of style over content for me. Matthew Weiner, at best, seats somewhere between decent dialogue-driven writing, and plain old ponderous navel-gazing punctuated only by uneventful guff. Judging by the damage done with the last season of The Sopranos- its easy to see which side of that fence he's falling.

There is something inherently 'pleased with itself' in the style of American drama's these days. In much the same way as actors like Glen Close try to fill a screen with their presence and hushed approach- 'look at me...I'm acting- I'm commanding your attention...watch me...ACT- observe my talent'.

Equally, whenever I watch something like Mad Men, I can almost hear the cogs in the writers brainstorm room clicking and whirring away, sending us the perceptible message - "yes...this is genius....my sociological wit....watch me write...look...Im WRITING...I can say so much in just a few lines of dialogue".

Ever watched an old episode of The Rockford Files or Ironside, and marvelled at how they can cover all this social commentary and STILL fit an engaging storyline in there? If not, perhaps its time you did.
 
Perhaps it's because it's as dull as ditchwater? I've tried twice to get into, but it just seems so boring with nothing even vaguely exciting happening in any of the episodes. The Guardian's TV reviewer Gareth McLean recently wrote a piece which I think sums up the show perfectly

"What to say about the drama lately dubbed the best on television? That it can be quite dull? That it's a triumph of style over substance, a wasted opportunity to skewer the hollowness of the American dream? That it's one of those shows that people say they like because they think they should? All of the above are true, but let's add that it's also smug and slow. Still, it does look pretty."

I realise that most of you will will disagree and talk about the character development etc. but the show seems to have taken the idea of greater character depth, but forgotten that it is also meant to be an interesting drama. :yawn:
 
That's good to know Dan-Am...I'm particularly curious as to how Peggy & Pete got together as I just can't see a girl like Peggy falling for him - too weak, too weasel-like...or have I misread him?

& another thing - am I the only one who thinks that Betty is soooooo cold?...there is absolutely nothing about her that makes me feel sorry for her. I know Don's been a rat which of course I don't condone, but I was always on the side of Mr Draper from the start (of season 2 anyway) - he just seems to have more redeeming character traits then his missus!
 
I thought it was a Princess phone that Don and Betty had in their bedroom.(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princess_telephone) They were big status objects in the US during the 60s. When I was growing up in Miami in the 70s my family had Trimline phones (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trimline_telephone) with touch tone dialling.

We also had a dishwasher. I don't know when my parents bought it but I remember them using it from the very early 70s onwarRAB. I thought it was the most pointless thing in the kitchen (after the microwave which my mother hardly used after we bought it in the early 80s) After I left home I taught English as a foreign language. One day I came across a teaching text that explained how to use a dishwasher. I was very amused because I realised my parents had no idea how to get the fullest use out of our dishwasher. They scrubbed the dishes in the sink before putting them in the machine, and they taught me to scour the dishes and the pots and pans completely clean before stacking them in the machine. No wonder I thought the dishwasher was useless! My brother's family just put the dishes in the machine after making sure there were no heavy food particles on the plates and pans :) My husband and I get along perfectly well without a dishwasher as there's only two of us in the house.

While it existed from the late 50s onwarRAB, colour TV became really big in the US around 1965/66- Star Trek was especially designed to capitalize on Colour TV, and magazine aRAB for colour TVs showed scenes from the programme and pointed out it was best enjoyed in colour. I loved the ad that used to be shown before NBC programmes in colour, that showed the NBC Peacock.(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juSq8exPbGk&feature=related) Gives me an instant rush back to my very early childhood. I must have been 3 years old when this ad was first broadcast. We didn't have a colour TV set until later, I think after we moved house in 1968.

When I first came to Britain I was amazed to hear that colour TV didn't become established in the UK until the 70s. Not everyone in the States had a colour TV then but it seemed to me most families we knew had one, often two, one in the family room and one in the master bedroom. Many had extra TVs as well and those were black and white- We had a third set in our guest bedroom which was black and white (I used to stay up late at night watching monster movies on it) and later I had a portable black and white set in my bedroom. My grandmother lived in a one bedroom flat with my great aunt and they had only one TV, a colour set in their living room.

When I lived in Poland in the late 80s very few people had a colour TV. The colour sets available were made in Russia and they had a reputation for blowing up. Poland only had two TV channels at the time, and no touch tone phones. Very few people had phones at home- the phone book for Poznan, the city I lived in, was very thin compared to the Miami phone book.
 
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