Cautionary Tales – Mystery Date
One of the most enjoyable aspects of Mad Men is watching Sally Draper try to figure out adults’ baffling ways. There’s that yearning to be a grown-up already, to finally have the power to make your own decisions, and the fear that maybe you won’t be up to the task. After all, no one hands [...]
Is there anybody in Mad Men viewerland who did not laugh when we were reintroduced to Paul, in Christmas Waltz? I’m in my forties: I laughed because I have vivid memories of the Hare Krishna Movement.
The MacGuffin. I remember hearing Hitchcock describe it as, and this is not a quote but purely my recreation, the thing that is terribly important to the people in the film, and not at all important to the people watching the film. The impact of the MacGuffin on the characters leads to the action. What’s [...]
Don sent Joan flowers. Don listened, really listened, when Joan said she used to get flowers. He knows what it’s like to build an identity on other people being charmed by you. He knows her sense of loss in seeing that change. He heard her need to be the person her mother raised her to [...]
As presented in Christmas Waltz, Paul Kinsey’s Star Trek script, “The Negron Complex,” about a world where white people were the slave class, was not very well written. However, it’s worth noting that during it’s original three year run, the producers of Star Trek had actually considered an episode that would have taken place on [...]
The Killing: Sayonara, Hiawatha
Sayanora, Hiawatha was a terrific episode of The Killing. The more I watch, the more I know that this show really can’t recover from Season 1. I suspect it will just be cancelled. Because during every excellent scene: Tommy and Stan leaving the school, Mitch phoning Stan, Holder stumbling through an “I’m there for you” [...]
In watching Mad Men episode 5.10, Christmas Waltz, my first thought was not about the episode’s theme. In fact, at first, a theme didn’t emerge. Instead, my first thought was how much fun this episode is. I haven’t been complaining about the season; last week got some bad reviews but I was fine with it, [...]
I don’t have a post about this week’s episode. I don’t have much to say about Dark Shadows because as Tim Goodman wrote, it’s a table-setter. It’s season five’s equivalent of a ground ball between first and second, moving the runners over. I could comment on other posts like Anne B’s rumination on marriage and [...]
If Mystery Date established Richard Speck as an analogy for Don Draper, then Signal 30 clearly (too clearly, in my mind) links Pete Campbell with University of Texas Tower sniper Charles Whitman. As I’m sure most Mad Men viewers unfamiliar with the case have Googled by now, Whitman was a former Marine who, on August [...]
One of the most enjoyable aspects of Mad Men is watching Sally Draper try to figure out adults’ baffling ways. There’s that yearning to be a grown-up already, to finally have the power to make your own decisions, and the fear that maybe you won’t be up to the task. After all, no one hands you a life manual. If you’re lucky, yes, you have guidance from mature and generous mentors. But for most of us, adulthood is really sink or swim. Here’s a life preserver. Keep paddling!
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