Mad Men on AMC • Fifth Season Thread

I suspend my disbelief for that kind of stuff because you're never gonna have a tv show come up with all these brilliant advertising ideas. Basically if they say it's brilliant on the show I just assume it is for the purposes of the story.

the beans pitch again raised a question that's come up several times itt: are SCDP really all that great at what they do? cuz while i could definitely see that ad appearing on TV, it didn't exactly blow me away with its brilliance.

― Choc. Clusterman (contenderizer), Tuesday, May 1, 2012 12:11 AM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

but this is ALWAYS the problem when fiction tries to represent the creative process: the supposed "great novel" or "great symphony" the leader character is preparing is rarely any good. you have to suspend disbelief.

yeah, i know. mad men doesn't make a great case for SCDP as a brilliant, pioneering ad powerhouse, imo. not a criticism of the show.

I think it's been made clear many times that they are not on the cutting edge. They are competent and occasionally have a flash of genius/inspiration, and people like Ginsburg think they have potential (or he was just flattering them), but they're not DDB.

That's why all the talk above about whether Peggy is good seems weird to me. She's good enough for that job. Don is good enough for the job. They're both competent and occasionally really good. But if they were really great they'd be more successful. And I don't think the show has been about the quality of the work since like Season 1.

xpost

the easy way to do it would be to just straight rip off the most brilliant advertising ideas of yesteryear. perhaps its to their credit that they don't do this, but otoh, a little education in the history of the creative side of the business might be a nice fringe benefit.

I think it's been made clear many times that they are not on the cutting edge. They are competent and occasionally have a flash of genius/inspiration, and people like Ginsburg think they have potential (or he was just flattering them), but they're not DDB.

i dunno. even recently it's been made clear that don's name carries weight in the ad world and that he has a mystique. although ginsburg was no doubt sucking up, he also seemed to be drawn to SCDP on the basis on don's name -- and he seemed carry a kind of awe for don, which--since ginsburg was coming from outside the ad world--means that don draper has to be a well-known guy by advertising standards.

in general i wish the show would shift the balance a bit from the soap-opera bits to the actual business of running an ad agency. i always liked that stuff and it's one of the things that made the show unique. too many TV shows that take place in a certain occupational milieu basically abandon their attention to that milieu after a shot while.

Even if Don has been a genius in the past, it's clearly a plot point of this season that he's coasting.

I agree, I mean, I don't want THE PITCH, but it's been a season or two since any major drama revolved around advertising.

Even if Don has been a genius in the past, it's clearly a plot point of this season that he's coasting.

adding weight to a point that's been made previously, he's drifting into roger's role, recognizer more than generator of brilliance

the easy way to do it would be to just straight rip off the most brilliant advertising ideas of yesteryear

"it's toasted"

(yes, i know)

yeah, i was kinda under the impression she wasn't so happy in her relationship. then she got all excited for his proposal? message: all girls want to be married at heart, even peggy?

― Mordy, Monday, April 30, 2012 8:57 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i know this is way upthread, but if theres one thing i cant stand its that this complex, interesting, multi-dimensional character is being expected to stand in for all women, & its what really grates abt the political arguments against this

anyway yeah loved this ep

and my first surreal conversion moment was definitely when january jones goes out in the back yard & shoots at the pigeons in s1

don's name carries weight in the ad world and that he has a mystique

Hard to say how much of this is to do with his talent, and how much with his gargantuan charisma.

I wonder if Roger was obliged to, er, return Marie's favour?

i know this is way upthread, but if theres one thing i cant stand its that this complex, interesting, multi-dimensional character is being expected to stand in for all women, & its what really grates abt the political arguments against this

srsly the way some of you come running to bat for this show the moment someone says something even half-critical about it makes community fanboys look reasonable

I think you guys are giving advertising too much credit.

Like there is a Sgt. Pepper of advertising or something.

I thought there was a direct parallel between Joan congratulating Peggy and saying that it was great she was moving in, without being engaged, and Peggy congratulating Megan. They both seemed really honest, but maybe both congratulators just wanted to really mean it?

Like there is a Sgt. Pepper of advertising or something.

It's the Purina Chuck Wagon tv commercial. The idea of the dog following the miniature covered wagon through the kitchen had its roots in Stockhausen's "Gesang der Jünglinge."

Yeah Peggy was really enthused, Megan just didn't care that much, or found the victory kinda hollow, because she's probably better than SCDP or for that matter advertising.

well, and the fact that she could be delivering gold every meeting and people would dismiss it as "eh, boss's wife"

Yeah, felt more like Megan is just stepping on egg shells (or whatever the appropriate folksy saying is) and that she is painfully self-aware of how others in the office see her and may be jealous. Hence also trying to pass off the idea to Don. But yeah Matt probably OTM and this is maybe a bit of her father coming through.

xp but no one was doing that in the episode--she was actually being given proper and sincere credit and just wasn't feelin it

Megan's dad is a great character

for some reason he was REALLY reminding me of Max Von Sydow in Hannah and Her Sisters

but no one was doing that in the episode

this struck me as very odd tbh. suddenly the place is a meritocracy?

I mean, other than the actual client thinking it was Don and Don also doing the "you should shake her hand" thing

I loved Megan's dad's Sartre specs.

I liked his subtly breaking Don's balls -- "Bobby is helping me refill my fountain pen"

Draper family 2, white carpet 0

Megan just didn't care that much, or found the victory kinda hollow, because she's probably better than SCDP or for that matter advertising.

I wouldn't necessarily say "better" but I think she's realizing advertising is not fulfilling for her in any way. She probably thought that since she'd been striking out in terms of getting acting work that she could get satisfaction from another ostensibly creative field but it hasn't worked out that way.

this struck me as very odd tbh. suddenly the place is a meritocracy?

i think stan said something at first, when he came back to his office. besides that, did we see anyone talking about it when don wasn't around?

well, Peggy and Megan

and in that case it's clear Peggy knew it would be a total dick-move to be less than enthusiastic

tbf Joan knew it'd be a dick move to be less than enthusiastic about Peggy shacking up, too

yeah there were obvious parallels there

srsly the way some of you come running to bat for this show the moment someone says something even half-critical about it makes community fanboys look reasonable

― Mordy, Tuesday, May 1, 2012 7:14 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

asking that a multi-dimensional character (is this really hyperbole or something to you??) be allowed to not represent all women isnt 'being a fanboy'

i realized while watching this that they've made stan way more likable than he was when he was first introduced. i like that dude now!

people are reading a lot more into how peggy congratulated megan than i did. i just thought her mind was elsewhere. it's easy to be nice when you're putting your competitiveness on the back burner while you deal with other stuff.

peggy puts too much stock into how events that should be personally significant will be perceived at large. it goes back to her obsession with being a modern, worldly city girl, and it's the same stuff with her looking to joan to tell her how to feel about moving in with abe.

Stan has definitely become much more appealing

Yeah he's funny.

i love glen. he's like the loaded gun you see go in to the desk drawer in the 1st act.

I wonder if there will ever be a Stan episode. Ginsberg has already had more character dev.

I quite like him in a comic relief position, a bit like a more knowing Kinsey.

hmm yeah he does kinda have a similar role to Kinsey (who was also one-half of a "team" with Peggy)

gr8080 otm about Glen

glen and sally being phone pals is pretty great

LOVE Sally's "she tripped over one of Gene's toys"

that was totally a Betty Draper move! only Sally is even sneakier

loved the roger/sally stuff. thought this was a brilliant episode, they're just mining this surreal banality thing really fucking hard now and it's paying off bigtime.

what's the age difference between sally/glen?

3 or 4 years i think?

creepily large

http://i.imgur.com/vjdXz.jpg