Mad Men '15

[heyabbott]

Is there another show of similar caliber worth watching?

 

[Steak Snabler]

The Americans is pretty dang good.

 

[Webster]

I watched late last night and wanted it to sink in, so I haven't done the recaps yet. I did not love the Stan-Peggy stuff, which was too neat by more than half. And the Roger stuff only worked in terms of the wistfulness between him and Joan -- him and Marie are a throwaway.

Other than that, I loved the finale. The Ted line about the three women in every man's life sticks in my head for the three calls which Don made. Interesting that, of the three, only Peggy told him to come home while the others basically told him that he wasn't needed.

In trying to convince Anna's niece that it was OK to run away from the terrible things that you have done (like he did and he told Peggy to do), and her seeming rejection of that advice, maybe he was ready for the epiphany which the v-neck sweater guy in the group provided for him. Maybe Sally and Betty weren't as open to his affection because he never provided it back to them the way that he did with Peggy (and I don't never noticed the similarity in those 3 names).

Running all the way to the other side of the country with his back up against the Pacific was such a nice metaphor for the fact that he needed to either give up or turn around and grow up. I assume that he writes the jingle and comes back a better man.

 

[Double Down]

Is there another show of similar caliber worth watching?

Second The Americans. Best show on TV.

Only halfway through both, but I really like both Fargo and Bloodline. The Affair had a good first season. Orange Is The New Black has its moments.

 

[Dyno]

I loved the MM finale the first time I watched and it only grew on me more when I watched it again last night. I was so afraid Weiner was going to fork it up, but he didn't. So glad the stupid "Don is DB Cooper!" "Megan is Sharon Tate!" theories didn't end up happening.

 

[Dick Whitman]

I loved the MM finale the first time I watched and it only grew on me more when I watched it again last night. I was so afraid Weiner was going to fork it up, but he didn't. So glad the stupid "Don is DB Cooper!" "Megan is Sharon Tate!" theories didn't end up happening.

I actually thought the D.B. Cooper scenario would have been OK.

 

[Steak Snabler]

Second The Americans. Best show on TV.

Only halfway through both, but I really like both Fargo and Bloodline. The Affair had a good first season. Orange Is The New Black has its moments.

Fargo is great, too. Took a while for Season 2 to get green-lit for whatever reason, but it's supposed to be back this fall.

 

[heyabbott]

Fargo is great, too. Took a while for Season 2 to get green-lit for whatever reason, but it's supposed to be back this fall.

I like the Americans, heck on Wheels, Shameless, Fargo. Didnt get into The Affair. I'll look for Bloodline. I will try for True Detective this season.

The payout on Game of Thrones better be incredibly great because the leadups have been excruciatingly hard to watch.

 

[qtlaw24]

For those of us too young to recall - was the commercial that remarkable that it serves as a fitting final triumph of our protagonist?

Oh yeah it was just about the most memorable ad of the 70's; it captures almost all of the elements of the era, the hope for cross-ethnic, cross-economic, cross-race relations, the soft melodies, and the selling of a relatively new item (soda) into a family refrigerator staple (well for me, a lower, middle-class, kid in '71, Coke was a known, but still a "treat", not something in my refrig regularly).

 

[Bronco77]

Oh yeah it was just about the most memorable ad of the 70's; it captures almost all of the elements of the era, the hope for cross-ethnic, cross-economic, cross-race relations, the soft melodies, and the selling of a relatively new item (soda) into a family refrigerator staple (well for me, a lower, middle-class, kid in '71, Coke was a known, but still a "treat", not something in my refrig regularly).

In fact, in a list of memorable ads of the '70s, Coke almost certainly would have two in the top five -- the one referenced in Mad Men and then, at the end of the decade, the one in which Mean Joe Greene hands his jersey over to the little kid. That one became famous during the '80 Super Bowl but actually made its debut in the fall of '79, and it also was a McCann-Erickson creation.

 

[Steak Snabler]

The thing that always bothered me about that Mean Joe ad is that anyone who has ever played football knows you don't take your jersey off that way. You take it off while it's still draped over your shoulder pads and carry your helmet through the neck hole, like so:

You certainly don't take your jersey off and leave your shoulder pads on. But then, he would have probably cracked the kid's head open if he'd thrown him the jersey AND the shoulder pads.

 

[mateen]

Before, say, the late 80s/early 90s, when fabric advances allowed jerseys to be fitted snugly to pads to prevent an opposing player from grabbing your jersey, football jerseys were much more loose-fitting, and could be taken off like a conventional shirt, with the pads left on. I don't think anybody at the time found that part of the Mean Joe commercial odd.