Mad Men, Season 6, Episode 11: “Favors” Written by Semi Chellas and Matthew Weiner Directed by Jennifer Getzinger Airs Sundays at 10pm ET on AMC The final ten-minute stretch of “Favors” consumes everything that came before it. A tender scene between Pete and Peggy, undercurrents of war and disfigured mice, they all scatter as Sally drops …
“I don’t know what happened. I usually feel better out there.” When Don goes to California, there is the expectation that we’re going to get a look at a looser, more relaxed Don. When he signed the wall “Dick + Anna ‘64” in Season Four’s “The Good News” it created the impression that California Don is actually Dick Whitman, the idea that this is how he behaves when the expectations of the Don Draper persona are left behind. But it’s 1968. Things are changing in this country. California is no longer an escape for Don, somewhere he can find solace, and as he awakes from his hash-fueled near-death experience, he is as lost as Pete Campbell when he descends onto the couch, taking a hit of Rizzo’s joint as the sounds of Big Brother & the Holding Company permeate the soundtrack.
Mad Men, Season 6, Episode 9: “The Better Half” Written by Erin Levy and Matthew Weiner Directed by Phil Abraham Airs Sundays at 10pm ET on AMC Peggy Olson is undoubtedly a feminist—arguably the most feminist character on the show, but she isn’t emblematic of the politicized second-wave feminism we associate with the term. She’s …
There have been some excellent episodes of Mad Men this season. “The Flood,” “Man with a Plan,” and especially “For Immediate Release” have all been varying degrees of great, but “The Crash” is the first episode to leave me dumbstruck with awe the way so many season five episodes did. It’s an episode in which every scene seems precisely crafted to achieve an effect. What is that effect?
Mad Men, Season 6, Episode 7: “Man with a Plan” Written by Semi Chellas and Matthew Weiner Directed by John Slattery Airs Sundays at 10pm ET on AMC “He enjoys being dominant,” I wrote of Don Draper last week, and he spends the first two thirds of this episode attempting to assert that dominance. He …
In a pre Breaking-Bad summer where exceptional shows like Mad Men and Game of Thrones come but once a week, alot of viewers are left with fantastic amounts of time to invest in great programming. So for whoever’s got the time here are the 5 best experiences British television has to offer. Each entry has …
It must be frustrating living life as Pete Campbell, putting so much effort into everything only to watch it come crumbling down around you while Don Draper, at the end of his rope , effortlessly reaches out and finds another vine waiting for his grasp. Sympathy for Pete is difficult to come by; his petulance frequently undermines whatever pity we could feel for him.
Leave it to Mad Men to recapture the power Planet of the Apes’ ending must have held for audiences that hadn’t been inured by decades of spoilers. Juxtaposing the scene on the beach and all that it implies with the violence that swept the nation in the wake of Dr. King’s assassination only serves to deepen its significance. “Everybody likes to go to the movies when they’re sad,” and Mad Men is a show that’s always understood this.
There is a shot in the middle of “To Have and To Hold” that recalls the towering heights of Mad Men’s fifth season, when form seemed to outweigh all other concerns. A slow, swooping take begins with two silhouettes imposed on a hypnogogic background of swirling color as Serge Gainsbourg and Brigitte Bardot’s “Bonnie and Clyde” provides a fitting accompaniment. The camera comes down to reveal Joan’s friend Kate underneath the man she met at the soda fountain, while Joan sits idly by. A friend of the man approaches and joins Joan on the sofa. Expressing a bemused indifference, she begins to make out with him as the camera continues moving and returns its focus to the psychedelic background.
Mad Men, Season 6, Episode 3: “The Collaborators” Written by Jonathan Igla and Matthew Weiner Directed by Jon Hamm Airs Sundays at 10pm ET on AMC There is an undercurrent of war present in “The Collaborators,” exclusively in the scenes concerning infidelity. Pete flirts with his neighbors at a party and is struck with …
When Don was asked “Are you alone?” at the end of Mad Men’s fifth season, there was a moment when I expected him to respond “Isn’t everyone?” Season six opens as Don reads Dante’s Inferno on a Hawaiian beach, surrounded by people but desperately alone, even his own wife (now a star on a soap opera) appears alien to him. Seemingly in response to the question left hanging at the end of season five, the voiceover, quoting Dante, intones “Midway through our life’s journey I went astray from the straight road and awoke to find myself alone in a dark wood.”
When starting a new television show, the thing I look forward to the most is the title sequence, so it only felt right to devise this list when I heard the theme was favourite television shows this month. In early television there wasn’t a huge focus on title sequences; their only purpose was to present the …
10. (tie) The Thick of It Is there a better tonic for election-year hype than an Armando Iannucci series? The apparently-final series of the show that made Iannucci’s name, The Thick Of It, upped the ante on its pitch-black style, stripping nearly all of its characters of any remaining semblances of humanity and daring us …
When it came to devising a list of what I felt were the top ten Television shows of 2012 I contemplated sticking with the theme of “Hey You Geeks!!” and centering the list solely on the best sci-fi and nerd related shows on TV. I generally group “Geek TV” into a segment of shows exclusively …
Lincoln Directed by Steven Spielberg Written by Tony Kushner USA, 2012 The American political system is hopelessly fractured. Its legislators are viciously divided on how to govern the nation. The president, about to begin his second term in office on a groundswell of grassroots public support, is either too much or not enough of a …
Jaime Lutz, writing in New Jersey’s The Star-Ledger in an early September piece called, “Net TV, New TV,” declared: “…a revolution is under way that will force traditional TV to make a gradual exit from the production of original programming…‘watching TV’ is going to take on a whole new meaning…” Lutz was looking at a …
It’s been such a deathly slow year at the movies so far that attempting to list ten great TV series is far easier than naming ten great films. With the premieres of TV’s two best shows, Breaking Bad (July 15, AMC) and Louie (tonight, FX), imminent, it seemed as good a time as any to …
Mad Men, Season 5, Episode 13: “The Phantom” Written by Jonathan Igla & Matthew Weiner Directed by Matthew Weiner Airs Sundays at 9pm (ET) on AMC Having set such high standards, it’s disappointing to find that the season finale doesn’t live up to the same quality as previous episodes. ‘The Phantom’ isn’t necessarily a weak …
Mad Men, Season 5, Episode 12: “Commissions and Fees” Written by Andre Jacquemetton & Maria Jacquemetton Directed by Chris Manley Airs Sundays at 9pm (ET) on AMC A major thematic arc this season has been the dissatisfaction of characters, derived from their constant efforts to achieve happiness; whatever “happiness” actually means. This has manifested itself …
Mad Men, Season 5, Episode 11: “The Other Woman” Written by Semi Chellas & Matthew Weiner Directed by Phil Abraham Airs Sundays at 9pm (ET) on AMC In an episode crammed with a sickening amount of sexism, ‘The Other Woman’ offers one of the most surprising, and moving, climaxes of this acclaimed fifth season. Former …
Mad Men, Season 5, Episode 10: “Christmas Waltz” Written by Victor Levin & Matthew Weiner Directed by Michael Uppendahl Airs Sundays at 9pm (ET) on AMC In typical Mad Men style, Prabhupada’s Hare Krishna Movement, formed nearing the end of 1966 in New York City, serves as the ideal backdrop to explore the idea of …
Mad Men, Season 5, Episode 9: “Dark Shadows” Written by Erin Levy Directed by Scott Hornbacher Airs Sundays at 9pm (ET) on AMC Mad Men has never been a show where plot twists and explosive action sequences reign supreme. Anyone who’s watched more than a season, knows that its main concern is character. Although the …
Mad Men, Season 5, Episode 7: “At the Codfish Ball” Written by Jonathan Igla Directed by Michael Uppendahl Airs Sundays at 9pm (ET) on AMC It’s somewhat surprising that Mad Men hasn’t dealt with the following subject matter more overtly, but this week’s episode focuses on the confrontation between tradition and progress. Through the …