Mad Men: How Long Can They Keep It Up?
No new Mad Men this week, but here's a post anyway. I'm obviously a big fan, but as I've watched it lately, I've been wondering how long the show can keep up its quality and sense of surprise. I don't mean in terms of real time; I mean in terms of fictional time.
Part of the reason that the show has (mostly) been able to avoid the cliches of period pieces is that it picked a relatively undercovered milieu for TV, and a time setting--1960--that pop culture hasn't done to death so much as others. It falls in between two periods, the birth of rock'n'roll and the turbulent later '60s, that by now make easy fodder for hackery and lame cultural shorthand. (For instance: "the birth of rock'n'roll" and "the turbulent '60s.") 1960 is relatively unexplored territory, and the show has done a good job of making even the more-familliar signposts of the era seem strange and new. (It was a nice touch, for example, that our one glimpse of Jackie Kennedy was that unsettling film of her speaking Spanish.)
But I have to wonder how far the show can move forward in time without falling into those period traps. Once Kennedy is elected, you're moving into dangerous New Frontier territory. Once you get to the Cuban Missile Crisis, things become even more familiar (Pete gets rid of his Bob Newhart records and starts playing Lenny Bruce in his office, etc.) And once JFK gets assassinated--pa-BAM!--all of a sudden, you're in pop-culture-cliche quicksand. You're in Mermaids/Wonder Years/American Dreams territory, and nobody wants that. From there, it's just a hop and a skip to the soundtrack playing Turn Turn Turn and little Sally running away to Haight-Ashbury for the Summer of Love.
I suppose the writers could handle all these challenges as well as they've done in season one, but you tell me: am I worrying over nothing? Do you want Mad Men to stay in its 1960 cocoon forever too? Or is the show a mess of cliches already and I'm just in denial?
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1
I think they're examing different characters and a signficantly different sub-culture than most other period pieces. Hopefully this is enough to avoid the cliches. I'm confident that the creative group behind this project will continue their excellence. And if not, it will still be interesting.
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2
Ah, the joy of pessimism: when you don't expect the show will last, as I don't, the concerns you cite flit away on little butterfly wings!
Assuming Mad Men sticks around, however, I think picking 1960 for its starting line gives us a dependable, fresh standard with which to assess the characters' development as the world around them changes. In fact, what if Weiner considered time-shifting as an overt narrative device? Season 2 could pick up in 1962, Season 3 in 1964, and so on. Given advertising's need to keep pace with changes in society, this could allow us to watch Sterling Cooper and its denizens evolve and/or die with the fidelity of a time-lapse photo array.
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3
@Erich: Call me naive, but at this point I believe the show stays on as long as Weiner wants to make it. Whatever the ratings, the bar for those can't be high at AMC, and buzz-wise it's put the network back on the map. They seem to be making an FX-style rebranding play (Breaking Bad, with Bryan Cranston, debuts in January), and Mad Men is just crucial to that.
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I dunno. We've seen plenty of turbulent 60's stuff, but it's usually from the POV of The Kids, not the generation that sees itself being displaced.
I think the Mad Mens have earned our trust.
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I gotta say I share your concern. The good parts of the show are the subtle differences, not in generations, but people who are just a few years apart - Peggy and the red-headed secretary, the men who fought in different wars, Pete/Don, Don//Sterling (or is it Cooper?) Anyway, as those subtle divides start to widen, will it still be as interesting? Or will it become like everything else we've seen about the 60's?
As long as they don't change the furniture too much - I'll still watch. Those sets are beautiful.
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James:
Starting at 1960 and moving forward with these characters is, I believe, precisely the point. How to take place is what the show is all about.
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I've never seen a show quite like Mad Men, in that the conflict comes not really from the characters against each other (though it does come from that), but from our knowledge of what is about to happen in the world at large. While we're engaged by the interpersonal conflicts, the overriding story is. . .what will happen to these people when everything changes all around them? Will they be able to adapt? Or will they be swept away? It seems like Pete and Peggy can adapt, but all of the others could go either way.
It's like Damages or one of those shows where you follow things on two different timelines and wonder how one led to the other -- only the other timeline is just understood in the mind of the viewer.
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This just in: According to the Hollywood Reporter, AMC has renewed Mad Men for a second season of 13 episodes to air next summer.
The story says the show has lost about half of the 1.6 million viewers who watched the premiere, but I'm guessing that's much better than a normal Thursday night on AMC.
I'm not too worried about the show advancing through time, like Hillary I want to see how the firm and the characters deal with upcoming changes. I like that Sterling-Cooper is kind of an old-fashioned firm, and Cooper especially seems resistant to new ideas ("Remind me to stop hiring young people", he said after Pete nailed down Kennedy's appeal). The series has no obligation to advance a year for each season, and I think about 5 seasons is the ideal length for a drama series anyways. I'm disappointed there's no new episode tonight, but it means I'll watch It's Always Sunny live.
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I cannot believe they have lost half their audience! It is one of the best shows in years. I'm so glad it's been renewed. Worked in TV commercials in NYC in 1967 and boy, does this show get it right. Really scary. Glad we can't go back in time. Once was enough.
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10
@ Erich: Those were lame "what if" scenarios considering Weiner has already said in other places that the show would hop ahead two years for every new season. Don't take the creator's words and play them off as if you thought of them. Naughty, naughty.
- poniewozik Loved the season. Mrs Tuned In wd have put u on the main list RT @boredtodeath Thank u for incl us in Time's Top 10. We'll take hon mention. - 6 hours ago
- poniewozik @carr2n Virgin is the best, LAX-JFK - 7 hours ago
- poniewozik Did NPR interview abt multiscreen multitasking. After, automatically reached for iPhone in pocket. Like don draper wd have for cigarettes. - 8 hours ago
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