Monday, March 3, 2008

Mad men overhyped?

Is it just me, or was anybody else underwhelmed by the much-vaunted Mad Men?

In comparison to recent shows like The Sopranos, The West Wing and Deadwood, it seems kind of old-fashioned and one dimensional.

And unlike those earlier shows, it doesn't seem to credit the viewer with a tremendous amount of intelligence to connect the dots - at least not if the pantomime winks at the audience about technology ("It's not as if there's some magic machine that makes perfect copies of documents"), future events ("It shouldn't be too hard to convince the nation that Richard Nixon is the next president") and social mores (here's hoping there's no more troweled-on irony from the closeted art director) are anything to go by.

Still, it's early days, and first episode was worth it for the wish-fulfillment scene where lead character and Creative Director Don Draper threw a tantrum at a new client and stormed out of the room.

1 comment:

Alan Wolk said...

Stick with it Cleaver. I had the same reaction to the first several episodes, but the series improves as it goes along and definitely grows on you.

And as I just posted on Scamp, your point about the beauty of the film is well taken. If you can watch it in HD, it's even more spectacular.