To me, this show is mesmerizing. I am completely addicted to it–have been from the first episode, which I began watching when it debuted way back in July of 2007. The moment that got me? When Rachel and Don have drinks and she says to him:
via AMCtv.com
“Mr. Draper, I don’t know what it is you really believe, but I do know what it feels like to be out of place. To be disconnected. To see the world laid out in front of you the way other people live it. And there is something about you that tells me you know it too.”
And Don’s response? He forces a gulp and gets this look of abject terror in his eyes–like oh sh*t how can she possibly know? Then, within a matter of seconds, he switches gears and goes back to being the cool, collected, dapper Don D.
That did it for me. From that moment on, I was thoroughly invested in this show and all its characters.
When did you “discover” this show, and what made you want to continue watching it? Did you have that definitive moment that pushed you over the edge and made you say “this is it?”
31 Responses to “What did it?”
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Interesting question. I saw it first around the third episode and was immediately captivated by the period detail. That's what really hooked me. I wanted to see more and went back to watch from the beginning (several times, in fact) on OnDemand.
Although the period was what initially captivated me, I got hooked into the characters, the things left unsaid and unexplained and it kept me going back for more.
By the way, I like that you pointed out Don's reaction to Rachel's comment about being disconnected. I saw that scene again long after my initial viewing and thought: we just saw a glimpse of Dick Whitman. That seemed to be the look that came over him when Dick was present.
Thanks for your post. I love the pic as well!
Hullabaloo, great question and I gotta say the scene you described has always stood at to me as being the first 'grabber'! Don had me at that point.
"Shoot" was also a big episode for me. I'm a stay at home Mom and I went through a mini midlife crisis a few years ago. Betty looked like she was dying inside in Shoot, then came alive when she got out of the house for the modeling shoot. I loved the scene when she and Don were at the dinner table and she said she didn't like the idea of him coming home to a warmed up mess at night. I could just feel her caving and dying again. And when she stood there, BB gun in hand, sucking on her cigarette shooting the birds, I knew I loved Betty.
I saw all the ads for the premiere of the show and I thought it looked so cool and I was all excited to watch, but I caught "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" halfway through and thought it was waaay to talky and slow. Yet I did tune back in for "Ladies Room" and the scene where Betty drives into the birdbath is what did it, I was absolutely hooked on Betty and had to find out what was wrong with her hands and why she seemed so sad. So it was Betty for me, but now I love everybody; what's even better is that I also fully appreciate and love the dialogue and that the show has it's own unique pace. Season 2 is too far away.
I get my television from the airwaves, so I couldn't get hooked to this show by watching it. I bought the DVDs after hearing Weiner on "Fresh Air": http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?stor…
As long as I'm at it, here's another great interview from Charlie Rose (though he doesn't seem to have watched the show): http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/9192
My favorite part of the first dinner with Rachel was when it occurred to her that it also must be hard to be a man. Imposing a role on someone which doesn't fit them, in slavery, religious persecution, sexism, etc., isn't just imposing on the oppressed but on the oppressor. The white men often find themselves "shooting an elephant" against their will but very much having to do so. Any historical drama that doesn't get this point is very dull indeed. I'd love to see a Weinerian take on other segments of society, but I love getting his take on how it affects the majority to be the majority while taking their majority very seriously.
Hope this makes sense, written in the very early a.m. as it was.
I was slowly hooked. I didn't see the show at all during S1, but watched it OnDemand before S2 started. I liked it immediately, and recognized it as great t.v. because of the writing, the acting, and the attention to detail in the clothing and sets.
After a couple of episodes you know that Don is hiding something big, and I love the fact that it wasn't instantly revealed. The way the show took the time to build the characters and the stories is what really got me.
If I have to choose a "oh they got me" moment, it would have been when Adam showed up, and Don was so cold, dismissive, and obviously terrified to let this kid into his new life. I had to know more. I had to know why.
The end result of that storyline still bothers me. I want to be able to go back and whisper in Don's ear to let Adam in. Tell him the truth. He'll keep your secrets. You can introduce him to your family as your cousin. Don't reject this poor, sweet boy who is so alone in the world and only wants your love.
Like Jules I caught S1 On Demand after hearing so many good things about the show. I was impressed with it from the start, in fact from the very opening title cards explaining that "Mad Men" referred to ad men on Madison Avenue, and that the nickname was coined by those very men. That was a great little sarcastic twist that told me the show was different.
There were probably three steps, though, to go from merely thinking it was good television to seeing it as a once-in-a-generation show. The first was in Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, when Don saves the cigarette account. All during the episode characters are telling you what a great ad man Don is, but you don't see him actually doing anything. Then he gets the inspiration at the meeting, comes up with the complete shift in campaign, and you realize he's better than they said.
The second was Shoot, because like GladMadWoman, I LOOOOVE Betty, and this was the episode that pushed me over that particular edge. The sight of perfect Betty still in her nightgown in the middle of the afternoon, defending her children with that BB gun. Man! It was so unexpected and seemed so freeing for the character – it really showed there was depth to Betty that we weren't seeing. I am so glad we got to see so much of it in S2.
But it was the pitch in The Wheel when I realized we were seeing greatness unfold before us. So much of it has to do with Jon Hamm's acting, but few moments in television have moved me so completely, without feeling the least bit manipulative. The layers of feeling you see play across Don's face as he uses his personal life to make the perfect pitch, and simultaneously realizes how damaged it really is and what he must do to repair it. I think the real power in that presentation is Harry's reaction – that would have generated laughs in most shows, but Hamm is so good that you totally believe poor Harry would lose it. Of course, Weiner finished up S2 with an even more powerful moment between Pete and Peggy, so maybe it's a leitmotif for him.
I completely missed season 1 (lame I know, I just don't watch much television). Last summer I was home sick going through the channels in the afternoon (they played a re-run on Wed afternoons during the run of season 2) and I was stopped dead in my tracks. It was the scene from the first episode of season 2 when Don and Betty meet for Valentines Day, meet her ex-roomate and so on. I stopped and said – "What is this?" – it was cinematically beautiful, the acting was incredible – and the WRITING – it caught my breathe. I watched the rest of the episode and then had to figure out the name of the show. I then was like a lunetic on Sunday nights (no one talk to me from 10-11!!!) and have since bought the DVD for season 1.
stephanie,
So you watched S2 and then S1? Wow, what a lot of backstory you had to enjoy.
I think my husband's love of the show is a rest testament to it's quality. He does not like episodic t.v. He likes a movie, but shows where stories continue from week to week normally don't hold his interest. At all.
Two exceptions to this are Mad Men and The Wire. He traveled quite a bit during S2 and we would often watch the show together over the phone, or if not, I'd get phone calls during commercial breaks.
We even went as Don and Betty to a Halloween party. In the interest of full disclosure, he looked more like Freddie than Don and the only thing slightly Betty-ish about me was my blonde hair and the dress. People who watch the show knew who we were though.
I fell in love with the series part of the way through the first season. I do not remember which episode was the first one I saw.
I was hooked from then. I loved the attention to detail. This period of American History fascinates me, so to be able to see it re-enacted week after week was a thrill. I want all of the women's clothes, despite the fact the only person's clothes that would look good on me are Peggy's.
One of the aspects that made me apperciate the show is that it did not gloss over the negative elements of the era, like racism, sexism, or anti-semetism. I enjoy that the show keeps you on edge, making it difficult to predict what is going to happen. To paraphrase a television critic, "it's not, what's going to happen next; it's what just happened." I love the texture, and all of the effort that the creative team has put into constructing this little world.
For me, it was probably the very end of Season one, Episode one, when we discover that Don has a wife and kids asleep in the suburbs. In fact the last scene of each episode is somewhat of a tease/revelation either for the audience or for the characters themselves; but on a much more elevated plane than that of a typical hour-long series. A few come to mind–"Smoke Gets In your Eyes", "Shoot", "The Wheel", "Maidenform", "The Jet Set", "Meditations in an Emergency"— I can't think of them all right now, but I'd love to see a montage put together. Also wish there was a list of all ,those memorable "Don Draperisms" like (may not be exact) "Love? love…was invented by guys like me to sell you nylons!"
One of my favorite Don Draper lines was delivered to the fez-wearing hippie, "God! Stop talking!" It was just so dismissive and funny!
I started to really like it from when Don betrayed Adam and indirectly caused his death. It became textured from then on and a must see.
I've hashed part of this out in a comment thread recently, so I'll probably repeat some. I watched from the outset and, like a lot of good shows, "Smoke" had enough to commit me for at least 5 eps. Though there were some aspects of the pilot were a bit overdone (as often happens in pilots), the Rachel quote in the main part was killer.
But every week kept raising the bar, expectations-wise. "Ladies' Room" with the L.A. crew improving on the look of the show, really introducing Betty, good stuff from Peggy, Paul and Joan — but no Pete, which was a gutsy thing. With "Figaro" you got the start of the Dick Whitman arc, the parallel structure and great work from JH & MS. "New Amsterdam," with all of its Campbell-Vogel stuff, was a bit of a mirror to Ep 2, and another sign that this show was going to go indepth on its characters, without feeling the need to have Don heavy every week.
Like some of the others, "5G" (with all of Don's worlds colliding) was when the show really felt like it was coming into its own for me — but "Babylon," with that classic scene of the men and women on opposite sides of the glass – and the launch of Peggy's career — was what told me this could be a great show, as opposed to a really good one.
I've been hooked on Mad Men since jump street. I caught up with season 1 on demand on a good friend's recommendation, and I was caught, as someone else noted, from the very first title card.
The show's ability to maintain it's sense of humor, and the performer's and writer's comic sensibilities, have always particularly stood out to me, i.e. the end of 'Red in the Face' with Roger succumbing to Don's revenge and expelling himself in front of the Nixon people. Coming from the point of view of a huge stand-up and comedy writing fan, it's always amazed me how the drama is maintained while allowing for bits of comedy. In that scene, it's revenge for Roger hitting on Don's wife, and that's always in the back of your mind, which makes it even funnier. Even Roger's heart attack allowed for a bit of comedy, in Mirabelle's comment "I knew we shouldn't have done it a second time." (or something along those lines) I also admire that, while the humor is often dark, it doesn't come from the darkness, it comes from a genuinely funny, sublime place that happens to take part in a dark moment.
Jules – I did watch season 2 first – and got my mom and cousin hooked – so we talked every Monday trying to piece the story together! Then a few months later the DVD was available – so we finally got it all figured out.
Jill- I just wanted to comment on your point about the endings of the show. They are fantastic, aren't they? Right from episode #1 we get hit with an incredible ending each week – it's such great story telling – and the endings are always dramatically satisfying – sad, confusing, shocking, sweet, neat, cool – something – and THEN they pick the perfect music to go along with the endings. Only "The West Wing" has ever come close to that for me. Remember Betty shooting the doves while "special angel" played? Or Don walking away from a barfing Roger and smiling while "Botch-a-me" played? Fantastic endings!
My moment was the exact same scene you are describing.
Right around the part where Don gives that great little spiel about how love doesn’t exist (“invented by guys like me, to sell nylons…”) and then she fires back with “it must be hard being a man, too”.
That’s when I knew this show would be something.
And I agree with some of the other comments about the endings. Almost every episode has an amazing final shot – I’m almost disappointed when I’m not blown away by the last shot (but I can’t even think of one that I didn’t like off the top of my head).
Some favorite finales off the top of my head: Shoot, Maidenform, The Wheel, The Hobo Code, Smoke Gets In Your Eyes, etc. etc.
I think I was struck by the bluntness of the show. It seemed so honest — so barefaced. One expects a show about advertising and the 60s to be shiny and slick — which it is — but it's also brutal in its candor. To me, that's the real brilliance of it. We're not seeing some prettified, palatable version of a time long past, which is normally how the media portrays this era. Even things that are more documentary in nature, tend to wax nostalgic, painting this time period with gentler strokes than was reality. This show doesn't do that. As beautifully rendered as it is, it's also dark and seamy. I love the way it's both unapologetic and nonjudgmental in its depiction of the characters and their dilemmas. It just feels like we're looking through a window at these people, rather than watching them on television.
Maybe I'm too easily impressed, but I was hooked after the first scene of the first episode in "Smoke…" – the period dress and set, Don Draper – a classic movie-star look and dress, the perfect casting of that waiter and his acting skills, his speaking style and tone, the immediate interjection in the first scene of racial bias by the head waiter, the smoking, and the scan around the barroom at the end of the first scene…. WOW
For me, I judge the worthiness of TV/Movies/Theatre by whether the the script, direction, and perfomers make me care about them. And I cared about Don Draper and the Waiter in that first scene – that rarely happens so fast – or at all. (For example, Revolutionary Road: Great cast, tremendous sets, interesting concept and storyline … but I could not give a c**p about any of the characters at any point in the film…)
Like Karl and others mentioned above, as the season evolved, other episodes made me become more and more engrossed. For me, 5G and The Hobo Code may have been the best 2 episodes of TV I had ever seen to that point.
And Season 2, with its greater depth and complexities, solidified my belief that we are witnessing in Mad Men something REALLY special in television history.
5G was the episode that really hooked me. That was the first episode where I couldn’t stop thinking about the show afterward. Don rejecting poor Adam and Pete pimping out Trudy… it was so hard to watch but so compelling. Then The Hobo Code and Shoot were just brilliant and of course The Wheel.
I heard the hype this past June and watched the pilot on demand. I then proceeded to spend the next 14 hours watching the other 12 episodes. Little moments kept me watching. The ending of Shoot (the show's first real WTF moment in my opinion) was a big one.
Watching all of S1 in one day made getting used to the slower pace of weekly episodes difficult (yes, I'm still a 15 year old male), but I'm glad I stuck with it. And this hiatus is just killing me. 6 months…
Hello all, this is my first time participating here, I just discovered this site recently and was so glad to find people who love dissecting this show as much as I do. Pardon the previous post, my cat must have been excited too, since she jumped on the keyboard and posted that pithy comment above.
Like Peter and Brenda, I was struck by the first scene of the first episode. When the head waiter snidely asked if the older black waiter was "disturbing" Don, with a tone clearly meant to intimidate his underling using white privilege, I knew this show would be different. They didn't shy away from the multiple levels of condescension, Don to Sam and then men to women. Also, the use of the song "Band of Gold" and it's syrupy sweet crooning of what was supposed to be everyone's goals, with the visuals of the endless line of carousing suits in that bar… it lent eeriness to the song and the setting, and established the theme of "image/mask versus reality" right off the bat.
I am very much someone who talks to people in all walks of life. So the idea that Don Draper would talk to the waiter in “Smoke” and actually be interested in his response captured my attention. And then seeing the SC office, which was very much in style with “The Best of Everything,” which has always been one of my favorite movies, intrigued me.
I thought some of S1 was a little meandering, such as Don’s visits downtown, and the storyline involving Adam simply made me feel sad. But once S2 kicked off, I became a “watch it twice in a row” girl.
Hi lamargarita. Welcome. Your cat can play, too, as long as she’s a Mad Men fan. Now that you’re here, take it for a spin, kick the tires, have a look under the hood.
Uh, when was Joan's first scene? 'Cause that's when I was hooked.
Stephanie,
The only other show that has used ending credit music as effectively as MM was The Sopranos. A lot of times it would be a song I was unfamiliar with, but the lyrics would be so spot on with the episode.
Hello lamargarita. I'm new here myself, and am still thrilled to find a group of people who are as crazy about the show as I. Heck, I've read a lot of the older postings, and the insights our fellow Basketcases come up with go way beyond anything I came up with on my own.
What drew me in at the beginning of S1 (didn't catch it til repeats, though) was, as a child of the 60s, all the points of references that I shared. When Sally climbed over the backseat of the car and flopped herself up front (how many times did I do that myself, as well as sitting up front on the "hump"=armrest), the drycleaning bag (except my mom never would let me play with them, even though I really was fascinated with wanting to) to even (sadly) the casual littering in the picnic from S2….there are so many things that bring me back to my childhood that no other television other than That 70s show (but that was teen years) has done before.
One thing that totally sets this show apart for me is how things unfold in such a rich, layered way. With it obviously being a show that builds on the storyline with each episode, I subconciously expected all these contrived, gimmicky things to happen at first – as most tv shows do. Having never watched The Sopranos, I wasn't used to the genius that is MW. The reveals can be shocking without being schlocky or soap opera-ish. TV will never be the same for me again after discovering this show.
Then there's the amazing acting we witness from the cast…..
Season 1, episode 8. Peggy crying while she does the twist. I couldn't stop watching after that.
I was home on maternity leave when S1 started. I would DVR each ep and watch when my babe was sleeping and I wanted to forget poopy diapers for a while.
For me, it was the colors of the beautiful sets and costumes that first caught my eye. I was born in 1971, so much of my image of the 50s and 60s is in black and white or the technicolor of Doris Day movies. The costumes made the time period feel more real to me. The suits, Joan's pencil skirs and sweaters, Rachel's killer wardrobe. Wow. I was hooked. Then I started listening to the dialogue.
Saw Smoke first. Tried to find MM the next week and found they were bumping it all over the A & E schedule in my area. However, the hook for me–S1's cinematography. I felt the lights and shadows in every shot added another dimension to every word spoken. The dialogue is phenomenal from beginning to end. As a period piece it is outstanding and would have been the 2ndry hook for me had it not been for the superb writing. Give me a scene with Joan in it, and I'm happy. Give me a scene with Don it, and I'm happy. Oh WTheck–just give a scene–I'm happy with those show on all levels.
Regarding the ending music mentioned above; amongst my MM friends we discuss that as much as everything else MM!
This is such a great topic and discussion.
For some reason, Smoke did not hook me. I missed its sheer brilliance, finding it intriguing but a bit too shiny.
I also had been recently burned by the Riches, which started off with so much potential and went in a completely different direction that the show I wanted to watch. And so with Mad Men I was hesitant to commit.
I've written often about how Marriage of Figaro was when I absolutely knew this was a show that was like no other–watching those scenes out at their house, I kept expecting the next scene to cut back to Monday morning at the office, only it never did, scene after scene, and this is what hooked me.
But I haven't written much about Ladies Room, and it had many quietly startling moments. Betty's car accident, the various women crying in the bathroom as a regular backdrop to a regular day, the lunch at the diner, the tour with Paul. No Rachel. No Pete. I did not fail to recognize the brilliance of Ladies Room, I just need to make sure it was going to stay that way.
What got me hooked to Mad Men was the very first shot in S1, where they explained the origin of the term "mad men". The fact at the end they said that the ad execs were the ones that coined the term just ugh, it was so genius.