Charles on… anything that comes along

If you didn’t catch Mad Men while it was on TV, then it’s now out on DVD. Through my relationship with Stuart, the brains behind the film/DVD/games review site Screenjabber (he’s production editor on the Tech section..) I got to review Mad Men, the DVD set.

Me likee. A lot:

instead of wilfully confusing us (thanks, Lost), losing us in wonk-speak (that’s you, West Wing) or featuring superhumans whose origins are imponderable (hello, Heroes), Mad Men — the self-named advertising kings of Madison Avenue at the start of the 1960s— deals with a time that we already know about. Or think we do.

…

Unlike the people of Lost and Heroes, where we’re as confused as them, and the Sopranos, who are far more ruthless than any of us could ever be, we think we have power over the Mad Men: we know what will happen to them. But as Matt Weiner — a former writer with the Sopranos, who had the pilot episode sitting around for five years waiting to get it greenlighted — shows, though we know generality (Kennedy will win!) we don’t know what happens to individuals.

…

Some men, it’s reported, don’t understand Mad Men (no guns, no killing, no car chases); but take the time to immerse yourself in its subtleties — [Don] Draper, who creates the aspirations and slightly false realities of advertising is himself the product of aspiration and a false reality he has created; and our picture of him as the hero is shattered by his obvious infidelity. Nothing is what it seems.

…

That’s not to say there aren’t some things for the guys. Most of all, as we move through the series, the clothes that the office’s queen bee secretary Joan (Christina Hendricks) wear go from a iridiscent green dress that says “Kindly notice my bosom” to one with orange spirals that lead to her nipples — which could be subtitled “HAVE YOU SEEN MY BREASTS YET?” It is the most extraordinary outfit you’ll see on TV — until the next series, I guess.

The other thing that will be very interesting in the next series (does anyone have a date when it will start airing) is how they’ll play the Kennedy thing - given that some time around then, you’ll know the result of the new presidential election. Obama = Kennedy? Or will our modern “Nixon” triumph instead?

Fabulous series, though.

These posts might be related (the database thinks..):
• Harry Potter and the pointless reviews (fear not, no spoilers here) (21 July 2007; score: 70.85%)
• When readers bite (because reviewers don't) (6 November 2006; score: 39.62%)
• Apple Mac Mini review at The Register (10 February 2005; score: 35.04%)