POLL: MAD MEN: Which tier?

[Jouster]

By the way, has anyone changed their opinion of "Mad Men" now that season 2 is almost finished?

We'll see how the season ends, but I think this season has been richer and even better than season 1, a lot of which almost seems like setup now.  Tier 1 (still/again).

[Joe Rogaine]

Im also loving Season 2 better than last season. The only thing I can complain about is the use of a Decemberists song.

[erika]

I just marathon'd season 1 this weekend. I hate hate hated the first episode... lame period jokes and awful dialogue, like the gay guy who says "You mean a person lives life one way, but secretly lives it another way!? IMPOSSIBLE!" Ugh.

Anyway, it picks up a ton. There are moments where it gets not stellar, but I like it! I think its funny how the plot is almost unimportant, its so focused on exposition.

How far into it are you? I think the plot is very important, actually... at least once you hit the middle of season 1.

[Jouster]

Im also loving Season 2 better than last season. The only thing I can complain about is the use of a Decemberists song.

I just read an interview with Matt Weiner and he says this:

"I actually used a song by The Cardigans last season to end the very first episode after the pilot, that’s contemporary. And of course David Carbonara writes a lot of music (for the show) and that’s contemporary. I feel like some of the music is source, and it’s coming out of radios and TVs and things like that and being played by orchestras - and that should be period. But music is one of your tools. I try to keep you in the period, but that song, I was doing a montage there and that song is so… (I almost used it last year, it’s by The Decemberists, and I almost used it last year when Betty was shooting the pigeons.) I want to have the freedom to use something that gives an emotion. I don’t think people felt it was particularly contemporary, all they felt was the incredible energy. And of course the words to the song, which is about this princess who’s both powerful and a princess and that whole kind of conflict - it just set up the show so well and just gave it this huge kick in the ass.

In terms of the artistic expression of the story, I always want to have the freedom to have contemporary music in there and I always want to have the freedom to put songs like that Bob Dylan song that I used at the end of the first season finale. To me, that song was not playing in Don’s house. That was a commentary I was making, which is "look at this man in this suit and imagine him in two years." That’s where we were going, which I knew and the audience didn’t – in two years, that music is going to be playing for this man and you just get this sense of “Oh right, it’s coming. It’s all coming.” That’s why I picked it. That’s part of it. The other part is the song completely emotionally and lyrically embodied his situation."

[emma]

It's a shame that he didn't really think it through.

Also, today someone sent me this, which is not a tier 1 site, but I like it nonetheless.

[Sarah]

Mr. Hamm did a pretty good job on SNL, I thought.  I especially liked Don Draper's tips for picking up women.  They were funny because they were true.

[Chris L]

Mr. Hamm did a pretty good job on SNL, I thought.  I especially liked Don Draper's tips for picking up women.  They were funny because they were true.

Nice James Mason impression too. 

[samir]

the Finger in Butts sketch was pretty okay.

[Ramsobot]

I am a big supporter of Will Forte but did not enjoy his Pete Campbell impression. However, I have had the Mad Men background music they used last night as Draper makes his pitch for the hula hoop suspenders stuck in my head all afternoon.

[jamesp]

I am a big supporter of Will Forte but did not enjoy his Pete Campbell impression. However, I have had the Mad Men background music they used last night as Draper makes his pitch for the hula hoop suspenders stuck in my head all afternoon.

He could've done a better Pete, but I loved Will Forte's sex offender trick or treat sketch.

[Ramsobot]

He could've done a better Pete, but I loved Will Forte's sex offender trick or treat sketch.

I heartily agree. He's had a lot of good stuff this season. His songs on Weekend Update, CallBot, other things.

Back to Mad Men, is this thread supposed to be spoiler free? Because if it's not there are a lot of things that I want to talk about that happened last night. I'll start with one, but I'll write it backwards, just in case:

!nug a dah eh dnA !deirc eteP

[Gilly]

He could've done a better Pete, but I loved Will Forte's sex offender trick or treat sketch.

Probably the best sketch of this season!

[yesno]

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v30/n20/grei01_.html

This article raises some good points, but some really annoying ones.

Good point:  Yeah, the apparent emphasis on "Look how silly those people in the past were!" is sometimes a bit jarring.  Although, if people really were sexist, it's not necessarily condemning the past to simply portray that.

Bad point:  "Great moments in the history of advertising are simply acted out, rather in the way Kraft Television Theater in its day might have dramatised scenes from the life of George Washington."  Well, yeah.  Historical fiction does this all the time.  What, do you want a scholarly analysis of the psychology and effectiveness of advertising?  I'm sure that that would make a really fun show.

Really bad point:  "The less you think about the plot the more you are free to luxuriate in the low sofas and Eames chairs, the gunmetal desks and geometric ceiling tiles and shiny IBM typewriters. Not to mention the lush costuming: party dresses, skinny brown ties, angora cardigans, vivid blue suits and ruffled peignoirs, captured in the pure dark hues and wide lighting ranges that Technicolor never committed to film."  I really hate this dismissive idea that costumes and sets and so forth are nice but some how superfluous to the quality of a show.  It's like saying that the way a novel is written has nothing to do with how good it is.  You can have a great-looking show that still sucks (The Tudors) but attention to these details is important in making a good show.

Yeah, Mad Men is not as good as the Sopranos , but it's a damn enjoyable show.

[KickTheBobo]

I got one more disc to go for Season One, and figure the show is a solid Tier 2.

The slide projector presentation almost made me cry.

[Jouster]

I got one more disc to go for Season One, and figure the show is a solid Tier 2.

The slide projector presentation almost made me cry.

Isn't that in the last episode of the season?  Are you skipping around?