This post mirrors why mad men isn’t nearly on the same level as the sopranos/breaking bad/the wire.
For all the visual richness and unique period dynamics, the story wasn’t particularly compelling and the show winds up feeling empty.
For all the visual richness and unique period dynamics, the story wasn’t particularly compelling and the show winds up feeling empty.
The first time I watched it I didn’t get it, a bunch of office drama, cheating and pettiness mixed in a timepiece. Great visuals but that’s it.
What I understood better the second time(and I suck at putting this into words) is that it’s a show where you have to appreciate the metadata more than the main story. Its about the changes in the times, the contrast between what life seemed to be and what life actually was, the psychological changes as time progressed, the “tough looking but house of cards psychology” if everything at the time is what got me to appreciate it more the second time.
Don is kinda like the past, trying to adapt. Struggling with a new identity, escaping past trauma. I think the character embodies the old fashioned behavior (as himself and Betty refer to themselves often), while Peggy is the youth of the 60, stumbling into an old world and at the same time making it her own because many of the epochal changes resonate with her. Her walk into the 70s ready to shake things up at the end of the series is amazing.
My mom watched the show because it reminded her of when she started work in an office, up to and including the casual sexual harassment. She wasn't so fond of that part but "that's the way it was back then". Similar to how cops claim The Shield was the most accurate depiction of policing.
To the contrary, all of the fan base at the time hinged on character developments! Married Pete got Peggy pregnant in the first episode, was anything ever going to come of that? would Don ever stoop so low as to make a pass at Joan? would Roger and Joan's series-long tryst blow up their respective relationships? etc etc
A lot of it is left un-shown, as each season jumps ahead in time. You slowly figure out what happened during those jumps by inference. I thought it was great.
The Don and Peggy relationship is also a fantastic slow burn.
"The only sin she's committed is being familiar."
Peggy’s baby is a crystallization of the contrast between her and Don. Don tells her, “It will shock you how much this never happened.” He is always running, ignoring what life repeatedly tries to teach him. Peggy makes the decision to give up her baby the keystone of her character: She could have had Pete and the life of an adoring housewife, instead she embraced her choice and consciously took a different path.
What the writers resisted was the potential melodrama of reintroducing the baby to Peggy’s life in some way. But that would have undermined the moment of Peggy’s choice: It was gone.
Until reading your comment my recollection was that she left it with her sister; apparently that's wrong and you can figure out what really happened by piecing together a few different short scenes across several seasons. As someone who watched the show as it came out over 8 years, it was like the baby fell off the face of the earth with no explanation.
As I said, it comes up again and again. Most directly in “Meditations in an Emergency”, wherein she tells Pete the whole story of his baby and why she gave it up.
My point is, all shows have their ups and downs. Sopranos/BB/Wire were great and definitely kickstarted the golden age of television, but Mad Men just hits differently and I think I now know why: the visual richness and spectacular screenwriting/character development.
That's like flipping to a random chapter in the middle of the Harry Potter series and saying "I don't get what they're doing with the latin and these wands, and what's with the owl? Who's Ron? We never met him in this random chapter, whole book series is just unsatisfying."
I enjoyed all the Kubrick references, but didn’t find it paid off the strangeness well.