The second series of Mad Men continued last night, and it has, after a little blip, become the must-see drama of the week for me. Last week we saw the fall-out from a catastrophic and fatal plane crash, but this week it was back to normal. And by normal I mean the simmering and multi-layered relationship between Don and Betty Draper.

For all our Mad Men news and reviews, go here.

(more…)

One of the things I love about Mad Men is that every line seems to be loaded with meaning. In light of all the political machinations – both vocational and social – it’s only the viewer who’s aware of the hidden meanings, and this, to me, is an example of truly masterful writing. And Mad Men’s dialogue is so loaded with double-meaning, it leaves you constantly on the edge of your seat. When Don Draper’s long-suffering wife said, “I don’t need a manual to know what little boys get up to”, it said pretty much everything.

For all our Mad Men news and reviews, go here.

(more…)

We voted Mad Men in our TV Top 20 last year, and there was good reason. It looked fantastic, the world chisel-jawed Don Draper operated in was seductive and cool, it had rich, simmering drama by the bucket loads (save for one ludicrous episode where the action was transported out of the offices of Sterling Cooper’s advertising agency to the Korean war), and the female performances were uniformly fantastic. In fact, that’s why I really liked Mad Men – despite the alpha males prowling around the advertising agency office, it was the women (January Jones and Christina Hendricks in particular) who provided the real emotional meat. So hurrah for the return of Mad Men to our screen for its second series!

For all our Mad Men news and reviews, go here.

(more…)

After last week’s bombshell that Donald Draper – the suave, award-winning ad exec at the heart of this brilliant drama series – was not Donald Draper at all (turns out he is actually a guy called Dick Whitman, who swapped name tags with a dead Donald Draper in the Korean War) I really did wonder how I’d react to the last episode of the first series. This series has been subtle, sometimes low-key and multi-layered, and last week’s shocker was the only time I harumphed – the twist was far too sensational and ‘from way out there’ in a weird way. Anyway, I needn’t have worried… Mad Men was back to its marvellous, slow-burning best last night for its series finalé.

(more…)

We all know that Mad Men is pure quality, but I was particularly looking forward to last night’s episode. I’ve been enjoying this series on many levels, and one of them has been the historical aspect. I find that whole early-1960s period really interesting – it’s when old conservative America clashed with new, young, hopeful America. We all know where it led, but the seeds of change were sewn during the Nixon versus Kennedy presidential race of 1960. There has been a fascinating subplot in Mad Men – Sterling Cooper had been hired to boost Nixon’s profile and that storyline had been bubbling away beneath everything. Now it was the big night - the presidential race of 1960, and for Sterling Cooper it was a chance to see whether its nous and clout could be carried over into the political stage.

(more…)

I haven’t seen Mad Men for the past several weeks, so I was wondering if I had missed loads of crucial stuff and important plot machinations. I’m sure there has been a few things I’ve missed, but watching Mad Men again last night was like slipping on a new pair of newly-ironed pants. A very pleasant experience, if you were wondering.

(more…)

Last week in this superior new drama series, about the dawn of the advertising industry, we were introduced to a testosterone-soaked office, full of martini-drinking men with power (a horrid combination). The women - we saw the office through the eyes of new PA Peggy – were merely subsidiary and they knew it. Pneumatic head girl Joan, a woman with all the curves and sass you could wish to see, even knew it. She was happy to play the game.

But what of hotshot Don Draper’s wife? The beautiful Betty was at home, raising two children in a lovely home in a picture-perfect street while her husband was being the most renowned ad man in New York (as well as enjoying a passionate affair with a volatile fashion designer). As this episode panned out, it was clear that there was trouble in paradise and, while Don and his team were trying to figure out how to market a new deodorant called Right Guard, one question kept coming up, over and over again. What do women want?

(more…)