Mad Men on AMC • Fifth Season Thread

can't wait! i don't remember exactly when it's supposed to start, but sometime this Spring, right? if only there was an internet to help determine the answer!

march 2012, sez some place on the internet

I can wait. I think.

SPOILER i hear don draper broods a lot next season SPOILER

read "breeds" at first

It has been off the air so long that I barely remember what even happened last season. It's hard to get excited about it.

^^^

I assume this season will begin in 1975, it feels like they've been gone so long

im sorta not looking forward to this. so sick of don and his bullshit. would be really excited if the next season was peggy-only

I'm hoping for a mid-70s setting. I feel like anything 1966-1969 will have inevitable stretches of crushing predictability.

(cue "White Rabbit")

it'll be awesome, i'm pretty sure, but yeah, i'm not exactly salivating. it seemed to end on a queasy, foreboding 'happy ending' for don, and i'm not desperate to see the whole miserable second marriage unravel.

eh when it comes back he'll be divorced again already. and it'll be the year 2030.

i wonder if he's quit smoking...

march 25.

Enough time to rewatch S4.

season premiere will be two hours!

Jesus. Not sure how I feel about that.

me neither, but i will watch every last minute of it.

no skip the last minute

The last minute will obviously be Don looking out of a window with a deeply furrowed brow.

It's still my theory that the show's focus will shift from Don to Peggy by the end of its run, so I'm expecting that to really begin happening this season. *crosses fingers*

the first 45 minutes will a recap of the last 4 seasons because everyone forgot

last time on Mad Men

"wow don congratulations on your wedding. who is your bride?"

"oh uh. i forget her name"

It's still my theory that the show's focus will shift from Don to Peggy by the end of its run, so I'm expecting that to really begin happening this season. *crosses fingers*

― Johnny Fever, Sunday, January 15, 2012 11:04 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

...I see so little reason for this..??

cos Don is super boring

for us, maybe. for so much of the rest of the viewing public that watches this show it almost needs a personal qualifier on my part that he's the main dig.

i love don.

http://cdn.wg.uproxx.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/crying-draper.jpg

i don't know. i just find *any* of the characters as continually interesting as don, even if he is predictable. i'm sort of past the point of being fascinated by don's actions and more look to how shit will all end up for him. i know he's gonna continually make some bad choices, and i think the writers here are smart enough - e.g., not 19yr old creative writing class depravists - that they wouldn't end the series on some woefully awful note, like him offing himself or whatevs. i don't know. at least i'd like to think it's beyond that.

the series should end with don faking his death and subsequently wandering the earth helping people out & going on adventures. kinda like the hulk. "you wouldn't like me when i'm...mad"

amc confirmed that s5 is set in may 2003

it follows don and peggy's grandchildren as they team up to solve mysteries

I think the gap has been too long for me. I tried reading episode summaries of the last series and had to think far too much to remind myself who some of the characters were.

Is there a reason why the gap has been soooo long?

some of the sopranos gaps were this long

Don't really understand how this level of ennui has set in really. Still looking forward to this.

i don't think the ennui is entirely from the gap between seasons but more from how lethargic + disappointing the last season was

Perhaps we're due for another good one (1, 3, 5...)

S4 > S3.

I really liked the last season. Certainly better than 3.

It was probably the funniest season, for a start.

Which had the lawnmower and which had the dead assistant?

The breakdown of Don & Betty's marriage was kind of necessary but until it actually happened it was making for some pretty slow, dull and miserable TV. S3 only really hit its stride in the last two or three episodes, before that there didn't seem to be much actually happening.

S4 had some badly-cast characters but was way better paced plotwise, and had that amazing Don and Peggy episode. Also it brought the lols.

Maybe I'm confusing the whole of S3 with the very end of S3 (which was great). I agree that S4 was enjoyable for the most part, but I'm a nerd and look for number-related trends. :)

i think S3 had the marriage ending and the lawn mower and the JFK assassination and the gang getting back together to start the new company right? that was jampacked with goodness. S4 had... Betty's new husband? Don dating that secretary? Uh - lots of Don being depressed? And the one suitcase episode w/ Peggy. (Oh, and also Peggy peeking over the wall.)

Yeah, I remember S3 with much more fondness than S4.

i think S3 had the marriage ending and the lawn mower and the JFK assassination and the gang getting back together to start the new company right?

Pretty much all in the last two episodes.

Sal also got fired in S3.

S3 was also when Joan left to get married, and Pete found her working at a department store.

Also: Peggy fucks Duck.

The last episode of S3 is terrific.

Also Re:Sal & S3-The episode where he and Don go to Baltimore and Don discovers Sal's secret.

This episode also pretty much invented "Pan Am" on ABC.