Curious Hair wrote:
Tad Queasy wrote:
Curious Hair wrote:
No one really watches Mad Men, either.
It's this generation's Miami Vice. Stylized garbage.
Take that the fuck back right now.
I had heard so many great things about the show that I
really wanted to like it. Several friends who have similar tastes in movies and TV recommended it to me and I excitedly added Season 1 to my queue fully expecting to be engrossed.
Unfortunately, that didn't happen.
The thing that struck me the most in the first four or five episodes of Season 1 was how heavy-handed it was. They couldn't go more than a scene or two without overdoing the sexism, frat boy atmosphere, or "Look at how unsafe people were back then!" bits. I know that's the way things were to a degree and they were trying to capture the prevailing attitudes of the era, but I think the way it was presented was...I don't want to say pandering, but just overkill:
*Man makes derogatory comment to or about a woman
*Woman makes derogatory comment to or about a woman
*Pregnant woman smoking (the way it was shot they might as well have had flashing arrows pointing at her belly and the lit cigarette in her hand). Yes, I
see it...Christ.
*Kid climbing over seats of moving car
*Kid playing with plastic dry-cleaning bag over her head. Mom scolds her, but, *gasp*, not for having a plastic bag over her head but for the clothes that were in it possibly being on the floor.
*Dopey double entendre and come-ons between the ad guys and secretaries that seemed like dialogue from an episode of 90210
I found very few of the characters compelling and the storylines weren't particularly interesting, either. The animated opening to each episode is very cool, though, as are the sets and wardrobe. This is what made me regard it as this generation's Miami Vice. The only character I found interesting was the savvy business woman who owned the department store but they didn't seem to do much with her character, at least in the episodes I saw. They also alluded to women becoming increasingly dissatisfied with their limited role in the workplace and how men, who at that point had no reason to worry about competition for their jobs from anyone besides other men, were less than overjoyed with this development. I would have liked to have seen how they handled this in future episodes but wasn't drawn in enough to keep watching just for that particular subplot.
As I said, I had heard many good things about the show and very much wanted to like it but they were so obvious about everything to the point of being silly. I found myself thinking: "OK, I
get it! Now can you move on to having someone say or do something interesting?" Maybe if it wasn't built up so much before I saw it my expectations would have been lowered and I would have been more impressed, but I had also heard good things about Oz and The Wire before seeing them and think both of those shows were every bit as good as advertised.
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