I thought that I’d try and write a weekly review for the show here and that it could be used as a jumping off point to discuss each episode (although I expect plenty of us have already watched this series by perhaps less than legal means, can we try not to mention what happens in later episodes for those that haven’t). Whether this is a good idea or not I don’t know, I imagine that there are probably more episode reviews out there for this show than there are actual viewers, which it goes without saying is a damn shame, as it really is the best show on television at the moment (sometimes second best, depending on how good that week’s episode of 30 Rock has been), but hardly surprising. I’m not sure if Don’s warm milk induced hallucination at the start of the episode – I would have called it a flashback, but he’s not going to be able to remember moments from before he was born – was an attempt to get new viewers up to speed on his tragic past, or an acknowledgement that they’ll be unlikely to get many new ones, as I doubt theatrical style drama is much of a turn-on for average television audiences. Personally, I wasn’t that sure about it as it seemed a bit like the show was trying too hard to be symbolic and ‘important’, but at least we learnt the reason why Don was originally called Dick - it’s no wonder that he jumped at the chance to leave his original family, and was a fantastic example of Mad Men’s occasionally cruel humour.
So, this will be known as the episode where Sal finally gets some action (or I’m going to refer to it as that, if only for rather shallow reasons), although I felt bad for him that it got cut short before it got anywhere. And of course that Don caught him in the act, even though he had the decency to not mention it, not outright at least - his ‘Limit Your Exposure’ idea for the London Fog advertising campaign really was nothing more than a veiled hint to Sal (I doubt that they’d use something so risqué for a campaign in the 1960s, but then I was born about 20 years too late to have much knowledge of that subject, so perhaps I’m wrong).
This was also the episode in which we finally got to see the elusive Head of Accounts Burt Petersen. And we’ll probably never see him again either. Perhaps it would have been more indicative of the crisis faced in Sterling-Cooper by the British invasion if a character we’d actually seen in previous episodes had been fired, but I’m not sure who I would have rather see let go. Still, it did get to lead to the delicious prospect of a Campbell-Cosgrove show-down, I’m glad that Pete didn’t do anything foolish with the shotgun he was brandishing at the end of series two as I would have missed his slimy, whiny presence – his wondering ‘Why can’t I have everything, all at once’ when he found out that he was only co-head of accounts was both hilarious and really summed up his deluded, self-centred nature. On hearing the list of the accounts that Campbell and Cosgrove will get, I was surprised to hear that the company managed to hang onto Utz after the Jimmy Barrett fiasco, and that they landed the Martinsons’ account with Kurt & Smitty’s awful song-based presentation, although I had the jingle in my head for days after watching that episode, so I guess it was effective. I wasn’t particularly keen on the painting of new British staff as scheming and unlikeable, as that seems to be the default position for English characters in American TV series, and I thought that Mad Men had more well-rounded characterisation than that, but it’s hardly surprising that the staff of Sterling-Cooper would view them with resentment, and it did lead to another moment of Joan at her bitchy best in her dealing with ‘Moneypenny’ John Hooker.
It was somewhat disconcerting to see Don and Betty so loved up at the start of the episode, particularly considering the fact that he then went off to Baltimore and fell into bed with the first woman he came across. From re-watching the second series in recent weeks, I’ve gotten rather used to seeing Don act cold, mysterious and distant, and Betty behave like a spoiled cow – although she was more than justified to do so in many cases what with Don’s relentless womanising but she’s never been much of a sympathetic character, I expect in later years Sally and Bobby are going to need a lot of therapy to get over the damage their mother has done.
And that was pretty much it for the first episode, Mad Men really isn’t the sort of show to go anywhere in a hurry – as the abrupt yet fairly un-dramatic end of the episode demonstrated. There were other minor highlights in the episode, such as Peggy finding a backbone and becoming almost scarily authoritative, and Bertram Cooper’s new art acquisition (Japanese octopus based erotica is something that I’ve never seen before), but I don’t want to keep going on and on about the episode. Especially considering that I should be getting on with a review for episode two as the BBC were kind enough to give us a double-bill last night. I expect I should re-watch that episode before writing about it, as two episodes were a bit too much for me to concentrate on (in other words I started to nod-off during the second one) so expect the review either tonight or tomorrow sometime - hopefully there’ll be some demand for it. Anyway, now it’s over to you, what did you think of episode one?
