I guess a good example was the storyline with Harry when Paul came back - that had no bearing on the bigger picture and was a little bit WTF?


I still enjoy it too. I've said it before but the 18 month break they had will have an impact on the whole thing i.e. it disrupted the flow and it takes time to get it back. It'll be interesting rewatching series 1 to see how long it takes to become coordinated.

I know everyone is probably more jazzed up for Game of Thrones starting again in April, but let's not forget that this quality show is also on its way back a week after.


Anyone else excited? I can't wait to have Joan and Peggy back in my life

Can't wait!

Can't wait! The cocktail countdown on their Facebook page isn't helping either hahaha

Mondays are going to be busy over the next few weeks catching up with MM and Game of Thrones.

I just finished Season 1.



I completely love it.

The first episode of the new season is a bit of a clunker although this is nothing new they usually are. It has it moments though all of which involve Roger and Peggy.

Roger and Peggy?
Please don't tell me they get it on?
It really becomes a soap where the question is just who hasn't slept with whom yet.

No thankfully they don't sleep with each other. Their moments are independent from one another. In fact basically everyone is independent of one another which isn't good.

Hmm, need to catch up with it.

And half the characters appear to be suicidal at this point... Ok that's a slight exaggeration but still.

Also the ridiculous lengths they continue to go to keep January Jones on this show is becoming annoying. I could understand if she was particularly great in the role of Betty or if the character were especially interesting but neither of those things are true. Is there anyone who wouldn't prefer that screen time be given to Christina Hendricks as Joan who continues to be completely underused on this show. She's basically in the two hour return for five minutes in which she does nothing.

Urgh. I'm really starting to dislike Mad Men quite a bit.

Only five minutes of Joan? That sucks

I loved Betty in seasons 1 - 3, then she turned into a right see you next Tuesday in 4, and didn't really do much in 5. Maybe they're trying to turn her character around in season 6? I don't know.

I'm sure I'm still going to enjoy it though.

Betty is awesome!
She has every right to be a bitch as she spend half her life making Don dinner while he shagged everything with a pulse.
Then just about when she got the ultimate revenge marrying a successful politician the Bastard goes on living in a nice City Loft with a French Supermodel half his age.
You'd be pissed off too, no wonder she started comfort eating.
Betty needs to come back as the amazing uber bitch she is and deliver a round of slaps to everyone else.

I'm seriously believing that the it will finish with Don offing himself in season 7....

Trudy is fucking awesome.

Much better episode than the season opener.

I loved the women kicking ass in their own different ways (with varying degrees of success). Some great lines but my favourite was "Heinz ketchup Don? It's the Coca Cola of condiments!"

Uuhh condiments, how fancy.
I just learned a new word.

I liked this weeks episode.
Trudy was indeed awesome.

Too much cheating for my liking, it used to have some meaning and you could see why the men did it but now it's just random whoring for the sake of it.
Well at least one got his for it.

I really hope Ken won't be doing the same as he is the last decent guy on the show.
Hope he gets a bit of story-line soon.
But please not THAT story-line.

I sorta like Peggy now. She got what she always wanted (being Don) and she's not comfortable with it. It's interesting.

Joan needs to get a grip. The Jaguar guy is a pig but she agreed to prostitute herself, nobody forced her.
She is fun to watch being a bitch though.

Aawwwww Joannie

Don, you bloody bastard. A big ride, but a bastard.

I'm really not sure what I think about Mad Men any more.

On the one hand its an incredibly well acted and constructed drama but on the other hand its just not especially interesting these days. Peggy has become basically the only interesting character on the show who's evolved in any meaningful way and the show itself doesn't really seem to be breaking any new ground. Its just a not especially interesting retread of previous seasons. Plus there's nowhere near enough Joan.

Have you not seen this week's? Joan was in it loads.

Anyway, I thought this week's was brilliant personally. It really reminded me why I love the show.

Harry storming into the office and shouting off, brilliant.
Don and Megan having lunch with the swingers, hilarious.
The whole Ketchup story and the horrible awkwardness at the end. Ken getting his angry face on again, love it.
Joan letting herself go at the nightclub.
Even the Dawn stuff was nice.
Bert's amazing one liner to Harry.

Don is SUCH A DICK to Megan. She's gonna end up like Betty soon.

I don't like Harry anymore but he has a point, he is very valuable to the firm, it should be recognized.

Joan kicked ass! Again, she is so amazing as a total bitch. She should not let the men in the firm push her around so much though.

Don really is a dick. He lost every likability if he ever had some.
How on earth can he justify his behavior towards Megan, when he is shagging the neighbors wife at the same time?
I disagree though, she won't end up like Betty as she has already proven that she won't take it. She gives it straight to Don.
You go girl!

The whole Ketchup thing was very funny.

I want more Ken!!!!!!
Harry had his episode this week so hopefully he will get his soon.
Let's start a petition.

Ah come on, Ken is boring.

Yeah like I care about that, I just wanna stare at his dreamy face.

Jon Hamm...mmmm...yummy.

Ken isn't boring, he's effortlessly cool.

He should definitely get more episodes, guy barely has a backstory.

Don't know, I just don't like him.

Even his video on Sesame Street does it for me haha

Episode 4 was definitely back up to standard after what felt like a slow start to this series.

*Plus the gorgeous Ted McGinley from Married with Children and Dynasty was in it!

Oh yeah I noticed him too.
Still looking fine.

She's not actually doing anything though. In fact she has a line of dialogue in the episode which sums up the situation (and Mad Men in general) perfectly when she says she's been there 15 years and they still treat her like a secretary. Peggy is the only character on this show that's actually moved on or progressed in any meaningful way and that makes it an increasingly dull piece of television. Yes its all very subtle and clever and well acted but its also more or less exactly the same as it was 5/6 years ago.

In all seriousness, do you actually enjoy anything on tv anymore? Has working in the industry completely ruined you so much?

I enjoy lots of it but this season of Mad Men is not particular included in that.

Not to sound like a broken record (and I'm really not trying to make the same point that I've previously made about your criticisms), but this is still just your opinion. I still consider Mad Men to be an immensely and consistently entertaining show. The time flies by when I'm watching it, and I know that I'm not the only person who feels that way.

If it's boring you, fair enough -- many people have been calling Mad Men boring since the very first episode of the show. I'd say that the show is simply not for those people, but that's just my opinion. You can always stop watching it, and from the sound of things, you'd probably be happier if you did so, just like I am happier as an ex-viewer of The Walking Dead.

Also, just for the record, no one ever said that these characters were all going to experience profound and substantial growth during the length of the show. Many of the characters were already well into their thirties or older at the beginning of the show -- a lot of people simply don't change much after that point. You'll probably disagree with this analogy, but to me, it seems sort of like watching a show about vampires and complaining that, after six seasons, they're all still vampires.

Catchball, a word of advice.

Just don't.

No shit Sherlock.

Ep 5 was/is very good.

Well I'm loving this season so far. Sometimes it gets bogged down in trying to be a little too clever for it's own good, with all the not-so-subtle foreshadowing and symbolism etc, but it's still enjoyable to watch.

They didn't handle the death of MLK as well as they did with JFK's though. I guess it's all about showing how each character reacts to the situation, but it kinda feels like we're just waiting for the next real life event to come up...

Anyway Harry (and his hair) is epic now he's grown some balls, Michael's date was hilarious, Joan, Peggy and Trudy are fucking brilliant when they're fierce, and Don is just a dick.

Oh and is it just me or is Megan turning into Freddie Mercury?

Also, this:

It's weird, but the earlier posts about Ken made me realize that I'm not attracted to any of the men on this show.

Anyway, another great episode, IMO. Not only did it have some great moments for Joan, but it was also a particularly horrible episode for Pete -- which is perfectly fine with me, since I can't stand Pete. As far as I'm concerned, he's easily the most pathetic character on the entire show.

I haven't watched the trailer for next week's episode -- I never do -- but it should be interesting to see how they deal with the aftermath of what happens in this week's episode.

Episode 6 is a cracker...I don't want to say anymore in case I spoil it for those who haven't seen it yet.

Totally agree with you

http://postimg.org/image/p7s9hmy13/

This week's was amazing.

Feel good tv at its best.

Sorry Astron, but the fact Betty wasn't in it helped.

Megan's mam is such a cunt.

I liked this week episode too.
I liked how Don got a lot of stick, about time.
Joan kicked ass, even though the 70s look doesn't suit her all that well.
I have a feeling the show evolved past Don now, would we really miss him if he were gone?
This whole season wasn't really about him at all anyway imo.

I'd miss him. The facial expressions he pulls in awkward social situations are priceless.

"Miss" is the wrong word. Would I be devastated if he left? No. I'd live, and I think that the show would survive without him. But I disagree that the show has "evolved past" Don Draper. He's still very much the focus of the show. It's ultimately about Don's ambitious, destructive personality, his constant self-loathing, the influence that he has on others (like Peggy and Pete, who embody the best and worst in him, respectively), the way that he sees the world, and the secret burden that he's been carrying for decades -- Dick Whitman. Often, even when Don isn't in a scene, it all goes back to him in some way.

I firmly believe that everyone on the show is expendable -- yes, even Joan -- but there's no good reason to get rid of Don yet. That said, I think that anyone who believes that he'll get a happy ending in the series finale is incredibly naïve. He's a tragic Everyman, and things can only end badly for him.

If I could get rid of any character on the show, it would be Pete. I have never liked Pete, and I never will. He's a pathetic, petulant brat who makes constant mistakes and then stomps around blaming everyone else for his own actions and failures, and I see absolutely no redeeming qualities in him whatsoever.

As opposed to Don who is such a love-able sweetheart?
I can forgive Petes antics as he is just doing what he is being presented with as the way to go, he just isn't as smooth about it as others.

I agree on Don to an extent. He is still somewhat important but I don't think he is still the centre and focus of the show, that has diminished drastically.
This episode was a good example as he was not relevant at all and almost shoehorned in.
His status in the firm is also decreasing, he is not the one shinning star that carries it all anymore.

His storylines as well are repetitive now.
We get it, he is unhappy. Though there is no focus on why anymore. While he was tragic before he now just comes across as a spoilt brat who just can't be pleased no matter what.

The difference is that Don owns his dick status. (No pun intended.) He is who he is, like it or not. Yes, he has a lot of self-loathing, but he isn't pathetic about it -- he doesn't, for instance, cheat on his wife and then get pissed off at her for finding out and being pissed off about it. That's a Pete move, not a Don one.

That's why I said that Peggy and Pete embody the best and worst of Don, respectively. In Pete's case, that means that he emulates Don, but he hates himself for doing so. He looks up to Don, but he doesn't know why he looks up to Don, because every time that he tries to be more like Don, he just makes a mess of things and ends up hating himself more. I just can't respect a character who is that pathetic -- either own up to the bad choices that you're making, or stop making them.

Peggy, on the other hand, took all of the business lessons that she learned from Don and put them to good use. The Heinz thing was a direct page out of Don's book. In all fairness, Don should have thought of that pitch -- he's the one who taught it to Peggy, after all. But he's too disillusioned at this point to care about trying to woo the companies -- he feels like he's the ad executive and these companies are telling him how to do his job, when they should really just be saying, "Your work speaks for itself, so whatever you want to do, we'll go with it." Meanwhile, Peggy is still young and optimistic, and she can't expect respect like Don does, because she knows that she hasn't really done anything to earn it yet. That puts a fire under her ass that has long since stopped burning under Don's ass. Meanwhile, she's now starting to flirt with the idea of infidelity -- another thing that she learned from Don. My guess is that she'll prove to be better at that than Pete is, too.

I don't understand why you're asserting that Don wasn't really important in the most recent episode. They lost Jaguar because of him. They merged because of him. He was the driving force behind everything that happened in that episode.

He's unhappy because he's unhappy -- that's kind of the point, IMO. He tried to change his life -- he got a gorgeous new wife, and I think that he genuinely believed for a while that he was going to be happy with her...but eventually, he realized that he still wasn't, and he doesn't know why, which makes him unhappy. (In other words, if he knew why he was unhappy, he could change it, but he doesn't, and that's why he's unhappy -- because he can't change his unhappiness.) When Don is unhappy, he goes looking for that elusive happiness elsewhere -- like in the arms of a friend's wife -- but that's not a happiness that he can hold on to for any significant period of time, so it's a vicious cycle for him.

No Don is the kind of Man that sticks it into everything with a pulse and then gets all nasty when his wife has to have a raunchy scene in her soap.
Also Don has done the Pete move before with Betty when she found out about his adultery.
Pete is just a kid. He gets angry because things in his eyes aren't happening as they're supposed to be.
As I said he has this image in his had how his life is supposed to be, how he sees everyone elses life but while all the other men get away with their cheating he gets caught, Don makes being the star of the company look easy - Pete works his arse off and is still doesn't get the recognition Don has, Ken says not to worry as him and his father in law are in the same boat - yet his father in law proves to be a hypocrite and kicks him out.
See looking at things from Petes point of view I can totally see where he is comign from and why he acts the way he does, he just feels like the world is immensely unfair to him, giving everyone candy but denies them to him.
I can't do that with Don. I agree with pretty much all you said about his downwards spiral but that was once upon a time, its repetitive now and makes no progress, I'm beyond caring.

Yes, Don is that kind of man -- and if someone doesn't like that about him, he believes that is their problem, not his. As I said before, he owns his dick status. He doesn't make any apologies for his double-standards that say that he's allowed to cheat on his wife, but she's not allowed to film a love scene with a fellow actor. That's just who he is, and everyone who doesn't like it can go fuck themselves.

I don't recall ever hearing Don whine when Betty found out about his infidelity. Pete whines about everything, and he's directly responsible for most of the things that he's whining about. That's why I like Don, but can't stand Pete. Some people see things differently than others, though -- what I see as pathetic whining, you might see as something completely different, and that's fine.

You're right -- Pete is a kid. I've said as much already. But that has nothing to do with his age. He's too old to still be a kid, and that's what annoys me. It's cute when Sally throws a tantrum. It's an entirely different matter when a grown man repeatedly throws tantrums.

But you're able to relate to him, and that's fair enough. I just can't do the same -- he has annoyed me since the very first episode of the show, and that will probably never change.

I hated him at first too but I warmed to him as I think his character did grow up in some way (not in many others).
His relationship with Don changed drastically, he doesn't try to be him anymore or be even better, he seems content to be his equal if not even a bit below him and gets rightly pissed off when Don doesn't even let him have that.

I'm not sure why there's a suggestion that Mad Men has evolved beyond Don. It hasn't.

Certainly its possible to argue that Don is no longer the most interesting character on the show but for better or worse he remains the sun at the centre of the Mad Men solar system. These characters are all reflections of Don (and his whims) and ultimately all contrasted against him. Pete's catastrophic infidelities contrasted against Don's not so catastrophic infidelities. Peggy and Megan's growing careers contrasted against the faltering and frustrating professional life of Don. Roger is a reflection of the dated joke Don fears he'll become. And so on and so on. Even Lane last year with his suicide is really all about Don.

In many respects this is both the beauty and the problem with Mad Men. Its a wonderful piece of writing that serves as a potentially brilliant character study of Don the problem is that none of these other characters ever really get to live or breathe on their own as a result. The reason a character like Ken for example never really gets to do anything is because he isn't really part of this orbit around Don. Although even that's not entirely true since Ken is essentially what Pete could have been had he not fallen into this trap of trying to emulate Don. The problem is if you start to do stuff with a character like Ken they become less ideal and stop serving their purpose quite so well.