Basket of Kisses

Best of 2009
In the Huffington Post, TV critic Ed Martin places Mad Men at the top of his list. The Northwestern lists Mad Men at #6 on their list. Behind House? Are you kidding? Alan Sepinwall, a Mad Men blogger from way back, places it first, as does the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

USA Today names Mad Men one of the year’s best, and Jon Hamm one of the actors of the year.

The Baltimore Sun was, as you may recalled, annoyed at the inaccuracies of Out of Town, but even downgrading Mad Men, still thinks it’s among the year’s best. The California Chronicle also has (legit) complaints about the show, despite naming it one of the year’s best.

CNN doesn’t think Mad Men is the best of the year, but it gets an honorable mention.

The AV Club lists 45 great moments from TV this year, covering scripted shows, reality TV, talk, news, and more. Mad Men’s moment is one that surprised me: I’d have bet it would be either Roger in blackface or Don’s “Dick in a box” confession, but look what they chose instead! In addition, our own Alison Brie gets a “moment” from Community. Good for her!

The Boston Globe’s year-end list talks about attention spans, and lists Mad Men as a show that doesn’t underestimate its audience.

Someone has to disagree: Leave it to this guy.

Best of the Aughts
Television Without Pity has a photo essay on the best scripted television shows of the decade which includes Mad Men (as well it should). Salon’s Heather Havrilesky, a long-time Mad Men supporter, places it midway through her list of the 15 best shows of the decade. The AV Club points out, in praising Mad Men as among the decade’s best, that period pieces rarely work. In an unusual move, it lists The Jet Set as an essential episode.

The Salt Lake Tribune lists Mad Men as a best show of the decade AND best of 2009, and has a charmingly different best movie list as well.

The AP lists 50 things that changed our lives in the aughts, including “Retro Chic” (meaning Mad Men style).

Oregon Live has a fun list of the decade’s best TV “stuff” (shows, people, etc.) and lists AMC for Mad Men, Breaking Bad, and even The Prisoner. Similarly, USA Today names Mad Men, and the rise of basic cable, one of the TV trends of the decade.

The National Post suggests that the movie of the decade is a television show, and waxes poetic about Mad Men, even though it gets facts wrong.

TWoP gives us Mad Men’s most outrageous moments.

While in Boston filming, Jon Hamm was spotted buying Mad Men DVDs (as gifts), which he admitted was dorky. But cute!

The Fug Girls guest write at Lemondrop about the Emmys, and criticize Elisabeth Moss for not showing us that she is a young beauty. Which she is, and that dress really didn’t in any way indicate it.

Lobbying for Oceana, January Jones visits Senators Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and John McCain (R-Gene Hosfstadt).  Here’s an alternate picture posted from Sen. McCain’s Twitter (with bonus Grandpa Gene references). McCain also spread the word on JJ’s cause to ABC News White House correspondent — and Mad Men fan – Jake Tapper.

Talk about burying the lede! The Mad Men Live Revue “is expected to expand with a wider rollout over the next year.”

Classic styling for weddings is way better than being in fashion, because those wedding pictures sit on your shelf forever. Mad Men is mentioned as a source for such classic styling.

Mad Men snacks. Fun!

And with those snacks, how about some cocktails?

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Someone is doing Mad Men Footnotes, which is lavishly illustrated minutia, mostly period stuff. Love it!

Television Without Pity brings us “Should Win/Will Win” on the Emmys, with Mad Men featured in both categories. TWOP also includes Mad Men among TV’s Most Memorable Musical Moments.

Basketcase foobella found a music video made by Miles Fisher (Jeff the dope dealer).

Unclear what the presser was about, but a bunch of photos of our beloved stars (h/t Basketcase JS).

Christina Hendricks is on the cover of InStyle Weddings, and you can vote for your favorite of her Caroline Herrera gown choices.

Have we seen this before? I think not — an excellent interview with Vincent Kartheiser in Vanity Fair.

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Tom Matlack interviews Matt Weiner for the Huffington Post. This is one of the most intimate and revealing interviews Matt has done (revealing about himself, not about spoilers or anything). (h/t Basketcase Ellen.)

How to have a Mad Men wedding.

Starpulse has fresh interview with Vincent Kartheiser. So does Salon (thanks, hullaballoo), but you might want to wait until after Sunday to read it. It’s not really a spoiler, but it’s very very VERY hinty and I would avoid it if I were you. (It’s a charming interview.)

Très Sugar compiles Mad Men quotes about sex.

A cute parody of Mad Men: “Mad Women,” with gender reversals throughout.

Several people sent us this cute Salon article about the absence of shorthand on Mad Men. Hell, I remember shorthand from offices in the 1980s!

The New York Times food section has an article about a toddler making cocktails. Of course, Mad Men is mentioned.

The Times is basically Mad Men Mad. This article on the cocktails of Mad Men catches a goof we’d missed (I’m adding it to our records now!) and also gives S3 “spoilers” (only on what drinks are served). (From Basketcase Allison.)

…And this article is basically a love song to Jon Hamm, complete with a video of his entire Tonight Show appearance! (Sent lovingly by Basketcase Debbie.)
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Thanks so much Jorie, who posts on Television Without Pity, (and who is also a Basketcase) for this:

People…think that on the regular DVD set for Season 2 there are no commentaries for “The Benefactor,” “Maidenform,” “Six Month Leave,” “The Mountain King,” and “Meditations In An Emergency.”  

There ARE commentaries for these episodes, but the DVD production people forgot to include menus for them. (On the “Audio Commentaries” menus under Special Features, only the first two episodes are listed. There is no “next” option.) The commentaries for these episodes can be accessed by playing the episode and using the “audio” button on your DVD player’s remote.

Jorie, thanks so much for this explanation.

Basketcases, let’s be careful out there!

The inestimable Television Without Pity has a fantastic interview with Elisabeth Moss, all about Mad Men. I love that about TWoP! None of this mucking about with Fear Itself, straight to the meat.

My favorite bit:

TWoP: Do we have to wait a long time to know what happens to the baby?

EM: Umm, it’s funny because you’re, you’re gonna have to wait a little bit. There are clues, but the clues might lead you in the wrong direction… or they might not. There are actually — to be perfectly honest, some things are up in the air at this point.

TWoP: How far into the season are you know?

EM: We are eight episodes in right now, I think. Nothing is really done the normal way, and nothing is ever as it seems.

It’s four whole pages! Go read it.

The event we were at was called Click Critics: The Power of Fan Websites. The panel consisted of Erica Blitz of Galactica Sitrep, Kevin Croy of Lostpedia, Dan Manu of Television Without Pity, Remona Outar of Ugly is In, Damon Schmidt of Whedonesque, and Jennie Tan of OfficeTally. The moderator was Alan Sepinwall of What’s Alan Watching? and the Star-Ledger.

The Paley Center itself is trying kind of hard to figure out what this whole blogging thing is, and doesn’t quite get it, as evidenced by the fact that no urls appeared in the program for the event. But the panelists were great (and so was the moderator). They were diverse, charming, funny, and thoughtful. No one was taking him/herself all that seriously. I loved noticing how much the stereotype of the fangeek has changed; that bloggers aren’t all male (hello!), or white, or (at all) unattractive, or young.

It was enormous fun meeting other bloggers with the kind of crazy commitment that Roberta and I have, and Erica confessed she’s a fan of our site (I’m not a Galactica person, but of course I read Whedonesque every day). I am so looking forward to keeping in touch with these people, and Damon’s wife, Kara, told us a story that will be appearing on this blog soon.

Deb and I are going to this on Monday, May 19th, at the Paley Center in New York. (Scroll down, look on the right.)

It’s a panel of TV recap/fan site blogger folk. Like us. Only not us. We’re not on the %$&@ panel. We found out about it after the fact.

Anyway, should be cool. Tickets are probably still available. Let us know if you’ll be there, and maybe we can all grab a bite afterwards.