Basket of Kisses

Our first post-season Mad News! I anticipate a flurry of season-end reviews followed by a welcome slow-down of this feature, but we’ll still run it at least weekly.

• Basketcase jw pointed out the Vulture’s Don Draper Likability Index. Ha!
• From Basketcase Surly Temple comes the first cogent, thoughtful analysis I’ve seen of Mad Men from the point of view of a conservative. Most conservatives have seen Mad Men as a celebration of bigotry, sexism, and smoking, and I’ve sneered, but Rod Dreher offers a contemplative and careful dissection.
• Speaking of intelligence, the LA Times gives a cogent analysis of Don and Peggy’s relationship.
• This political story about Mad Men is more glib than analytical, but you may enjoy it.
• Jon Weisman went to the same high school as Matt Weiner: Where a certain Father John Gill taught.
• The Deseret News can’t figure out how to hold on until season 3.
• The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette thinks they’ve found an editing error in the finale.
• TV Guide interviews Elisabeth Moss.

(more…)

• This is straightforward: If You’re Not Watching Mad Men, You’re Crazy.
• City Beat of Cincinatti compares Mad Men to the Dark Knight. Which is cool. h/t to Basketcase Peter G.
• The Atlantic has the most amazing contemplation of Mad Men:
  

  There’s a “Is it all worth it” quality to Mad Men which I love–like you’re cheering for Betty to move up, and yet at the same time you’re thinking, “Move up into what?” Into puking into office garbage cans?

  Definitely read the whole thing.

• Variety ponders the influence of the critics on Emmy voters, using Mad Men as their prime example.
• 411mania’s McGuffin DVD Review takes on Mad Men season 1, loves the series and the DVDs, and offers their top ten moments of season 1:

(more…)