mon 02/12/2024

Mad Men, Series 4, BBC Four | reviews, news & interviews

Mad Men, Series 4, BBC Four

Mad Men, Series 4, BBC Four

So slick and moreish you don't even realise it's an advert

Jon Hamm as Donald Draper: 'You keep reading Don Draper things into his immobility: regret, self-loathing, boredom, suppressed agony'

That sobbing musical theme resumes, so does that hospital-white dreamlike cartoon of a male figure tumbling in a Hitchcockian fall from grace past huge ads of poster girls. Actually it’s almost as much Milton as it is Hitchcock. I say that to be deliberately pretentious, because the secret of Mad Men’s addictive draw is the human profundity you try to read into this fascinatingly surfaced drama about an empty man who doesn’t know who he is. This is the ultimate advert for TV, a series so slick and so moreish you don’t even know it’s an advert.

That sobbing musical theme resumes, so does that hospital-white dreamlike cartoon of a male figure tumbling in a Hitchcockian fall from grace past huge ads of poster girls. Actually it’s almost as much Milton as it is Hitchcock. I say that to be deliberately pretentious, because the secret of Mad Men’s addictive draw is the human profundity you try to read into this fascinatingly surfaced drama about an empty man who doesn’t know who he is. This is the ultimate advert for TV, a series so slick and so moreish you don’t even know it’s an advert.

Few things on TV deal with the panic that many successful people feel about who they are under their trappings

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MAD MEN is excellent but why is it on so late. Most people turn in early during working week. Please please can you get an earlier slot?

"He never reads." This is not true. He reads the paper (New York Times?) on the train. He read Frank O'Hara's book of poems "Meditations in an Emergency" in the episode of that name in a bar. He's a copywriter, and apparently, a good one. He needs to read. We don't know what, but he keeps up with the news, and he's aware of contemporary literature. Also, in series two, he sneaked out of the office to watch a French film. Don is not a philistine, even if he hates opera. Nor is Betty undereducated. She has a degree in anthropology. She mentioned anthropology to Don in series 1 and her degree to Henry in series 3. Her problem is that she doesn't have a reason to use it. Don't believe me? http://madmen.wikia.com/wiki/Betty_Draper

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