It's Turning into a Soap Opera
I really enjoyed the story lines last season dealing with the advertising business in the sixties. The strategies and corporate interactions were fascinating. However, this season is one big soap opera. "Will Betts sleep with the stable boy? Why can't Don get it up? Why can't the Campbells have children. The office manager get's engaged and Sterling laments. Peggy's sister confesses to the priest in an attempt to undermine Peggy." OMG, put this show on at 1PM with All My Children. I hope the producers turn this around or Mad Men will be an "also ran" at the Golden Globes.
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With all due respect for those who aren't happy with the way Mad Men is progressing, there's a cool button on your remote, it's called OFF/Power and the Channel button is great for choosing different programming too. Just sayin'.
I'm with you, Tracy. Not that people aren't entitled to their opinions, but If I didn't like what was happening on the show, I'd change the channel. I certainly wouldn't spend time trashing it on the forums.
And, I don't think it's turning into a soap. It's a legitimate look at human life, interactions, relationships, the difficulties most people encounter (albeit, a bit more dramatically, but still).
The first season was about establishing who all the characters were and how they all interacted within the context of the ad agency, etc. Now, it's still about that with the layers of humanity added on.
If it were a soap, the writers would have picked up right after Thanksgiving 1960 and explained every gory detail ad nauseum. My two cents...
Perfectly stated Tracy & zebra!
"DITTO"
A third Ditto! This is well-written and very well acted and produced. Hey, Hamlet is a soap opera if you want to just look at the plot. I think some people have accepted junk on TV for so long that they have lost the ability to discriminate.
And on another channel, I see Big Love will return -stupid garbage, in my opinion, badly written, completely unbelievable and mediocre acting but each to his own...It's good that we all like different things, that's what makes the world go round.
Yes, flowerpower, you're right. Every opera, ballet, and most of Shakespeare could easily be perceived as a soap opera. The plots are typically the same, star-crossed lovers, forbidden romance, mistaken identity, etc. If everyone got married, it's a comedy with a happy ending. If everyone dies, it's a tragedy.
MM is well written, expertly performed and executed and a delight to watch. If you don't want to see it, go away.
But our lives ARE soap operas- no?
Character development: yes--especially within the context of the times. All great drama has that.
MM is turning into who's screwing (or might be) screwing whom.
If you like that stuff--and understand a little Spanish--the afternoon novellas do it much better, with hotter actors.
YES!!!!! I think the show has been great so far, with the last episode - "THe New Girl"- one of the best of the series .....Wake up, things have changed....the show left us during thanksgiving 1960.....they returned Valentines day 1962.....do I necessarily like that? not really...we miss what happens to the characters in the interim....but they have been filling in the blanks...I like not knowing what happened...in the end im sure all will be revealed....you cant expect these characters to pick up like its the next day...its been 14 months...people change, grow, Peggy is starting to come into her own...don's first season women? Midge he left giving her a $2500 check for a car after she didnt go to paris with him....Rachel called him a coward, and ddint want to be with him after he almost left his children behind in a panic from being revealed as Dick Whitman....
I think what you need to realize, is that the show in my opinion, is shown through the eyes of Don And Peggy....they are the two heartbeats of the show....a man of his time, talented beyond words completely sure of himself...but teetering on the precipice of madness, lost and really alone.....detached from the world he resides in....Peggy, wide-eyed and naive is trying to find her way in a time of men, and her burgeoning relationship with Don is as poignant as it is laced with nuances and is the heart of the show...they are the only two charfacters that are not cookie-cutter, they are unique often detached and alone in a world of decadence...it is my hope that depite the 14 year age difference...they find some solace...some peace in each other....
If it didn't have soap opera qualities it would be considered a documentary. Boooring!!
Drink & Smoke, love your comment AND your pic of dean-o....Everybody loves somebody, sometime!
That's toooo funny Tracy! Dean-o and Jon Hamm make smoking look so sexy!
luvmadmen...love Dean Martin and Jon Hamm....and yes, they definitely make smoking look so sex-ay....I also like the way Don Draper will sometime spin his glass/drink in various scenes. Something about that is sexy too. I'm just weird that way.