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Its Christmas time at SCDP and the office party keeps getting smaller. Having added no new accounts in the last month, the penny pinching is getting tighter as Lane has reduced the party to “a bottle of gin and a log of Velveeta.” Don is also not enjoying his first Christmas apart from the family and you can tell he is crushed by any reminder of the occasion. But just because it is Christmas in July for us viewers watching Mad Men last night, the holiday was not what made the show interesting.
“Who is Don Draper?” A man who won’t meddle with the meddlers apparently, as the Season 4 premiere of Mad Men showed us.
Picking up almost a year after the coup of Sterling Cooper formed the new Sterling Cooper Draper & Price, in swanky new window filled, colorful couches, and conference table less offices, the new team is barely keeping their head above water as Lucky Strike accounts for 71% of their billings. But this episode isn’t about the new firm, as much as it is Don Draper and his importance to firm.
This story’s opening line also opens the episode as Don marginalizes and brushes off the interviewer that is writing a story about him and the firm. Draper doesn’t care and it of course comes to bite everyone in the ass. Through out the episode every familiar face tells Don how important he is and what he means to this company as Don brushes them off and suggests that his work should do all of his talking.
Mad Men 3.12 “Shut the Door, Have a Seat”
If you didn’t watch Mad Men’s third season or haven’t jumped on the show yet, you are missing out on some of the best television of the decade.
(Spoilers Throughout)
This season of Mad Men has been described as slow, boring, character driven and even mediocre by some. I fall into none of these camps, except character driven, and have been rewarded with a number of episodes that you could argue deserve to be in the top five ever for the show. [Read more...]
The third season of Mad Men began last night and the results were just what we want from a series premiere in the middle of the shows run.
(Spoilers here in for the episode)
I will say I find it rather interesting that the show reset some of the characters back their more original selves over the course of the show. Where the second season last left us, Don Draper seemed like he might be ready to give his family life a shot, leaving the women on the side behind, especially after Betty his wife is found to be pregnant with their third child. Pete Campbell also seemed to be maturing and growing up, becoming a more likeable character and less of a conniving and selfish employee at Sterling Cooper.
When the season starts up, a few months have passed as Betty is now showing and Don is on his way to Baltimore to sure up client relations as the last of the firings after the companies British merger falls upon their victims. The winners of these firings happen to be Ken Cosgrove and Pete Campbell who are anointed the new head of accounts, though Pete’s good mood is quickly dashed as he realizes they are positioned to compete. [Read more...]
Focusing on the women in Mad Men’s life is a common occurrence for the show but I don’t know if it has ever been as exclusively displayed as this. … (more...)
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The Internship is a safe and stereotypical comedy that's best moments are when it actually breaks away from that formula; not that it really matters. … (more)
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Noah Baumbach's latest, Frances Ha, keeps him in the running for one of the best working directors while getting another stellar performance out of … (more)
It's been a while since we heard from the bros of Boulder came out with an album. But in the time since their latest effort came out, music has since … (more)
Hopefully by now, you would have some sort of opinion on post rock Icelandic band Sigur Ros. But with their latest release, the band is throwing fans … (more)
Love them or hate them, Vampire Weekend’s latest album Modern Vampires of the City is a must listen of 2013. … (more)
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As season 3 of Teen Wolf continues, it becomes clear that the werewolves are not the only dangerous creatures in town. … (more)
Did anyone else feel like they missed an episode between this week and the premiere? No matter, tonight we still have a great episode of Teen Wolf, … (more)
I don't know how they do it, but Game of Thrones keeps getting better as the seasons move forward. Even though it wasn't quite as exciting as last … (more)
MTV’s Teen Wolf comes back with a rather interesting start, definitely hitting the intrigue button for what the season has in store. Yet through … (more)
The story of The Kitchen House begins at its end – with a young woman and terrified child happening upon a lifeless body swinging from a high tree … (more)
Apparently, modern day witch hunts do exist. In case you haven’t heard the story of the West Memphis Three, now is your chance to read all about … (more)
Ross Matthews is right about one thing – any self-confidence he feels about his writing skills is without a doubt delusional. He’d have to be … (more)
Yes, this might possibly be (i.e., definitely is) yet another World War II book review that you by now have probably come to expect from me; but … (more)
Ken Levine deserves some kind of medal. First, he introduced us to the world of Rapture, where we would kindly roam the halls of a forgotten city … (more)
Plagued by delays and shortcomings, 2012 was an up-and-down year for video games. We saw triumphant returns to form, fantastic new IP's, and some … (more)
For future reference: when skydiving, be sure that your projected landing zone doesn’t happen to be an island full of evil pirates that are more … (more)