The Emmys: On Second Thought
That post below about "Boston Legal?" (Fine show, that, and I hear its last season is upon us...)
Forget about it.
I was wrong, but I was also playing devil's advocate, which is another way of saying: I didn't mean any of it.
Don't you just love bloggers who are full of it?
"Man Men" won best drama at the 60th annual Primetime Emmys. "Mad Men" should have won best drama. It would have been an Emmys crime - piled upon many over the past 60 years (notably and most egregiously, at least of recent vintage, the absolute kiss-off of "The Wire," which didn't even win its one, single, solitary, little nomination last night.)
But that's another rant for another day. "Man Men" shoulda won, and just to prove to you that I've been carrying the show's water for weeks, months...here's my most recent story in Newsday on the show, just last week.
If you can stand to read one more thing about "MM" go to the jump. If not - and believe me, I understand - then I have another post coming up with third thoughts, this time about Bryan Cranston.
THE SHOW The 60th Primetime Emmy Awards
WHEN|WHERE Sunday at 8p.m. on ABC/7; red-carpet shows, Sunday 6-8 p.m. on E! and TV Guide Network; 7-8 p.m. on ABC/7
HOSTS Jeff Probst, Tom Bergeron, Heidi Klum, Ryan Seacrest and Howie Mandel
' Mad Men" will win the best drama Emmy....
Verne Gay
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And the Emmy winners are ... And the Emmy winners are ... Photos
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Television Blogs
"Mad Men" will win the best drama Emmy....
"Mad Men. ..."
There. Just keep saying this over and over, and just maybe justice will be done on Sunday. Nevertheless, modifiers are always best attached to predictions in this parlor game. Let's just say odds are good the AMC drama about the advertising biz in the early 1960s will become the first basic-cable drama to walk away with the prize. Here are the reasons:
1. The nostalgia effect "Mad Men" has re-created a luminous bygone world in yellows, reds and umber - autumnal hues for an autumnal setting. Life is passing these characters by. Winter approaches. A sadness pervades. Emmy voters may likely recognize that in their own lives and industry.
2. Homage to Hitchcock What show on TV has more splendidly, gorgeously, evocatively knelt before the master ever? January Jones (Betty Draper) is creator Matthew Weiner's Tippi Hedren or Grace Kelly, Jon Hamm (Don Draper) his Cary Grant. Each screen shot - from eye level up, or just off center - reminds viewers that this show walks in the footsteps of a giant. Such ambition must be rewarded.
3. A show, like life Scenes end before an ending, as if in midsentence, or while exhaling. Detractors say this storytelling technique is lethargic. Fans say it is enthralling - a trek through an intensely drawn psychological landscape that has more inherent action than 10 standard-issue TV dramas rolled into one. Fans are right. As one character said in a recent episode of a Mark Rothko painting, you just "fall into it."
4. TV's best supporting cast John Slattery (Roger Sterling), Robert Morse (Bert Cooper), Christina Hendricks (Joan Holloway), Elisabeth Moss (Peggy Olson), Mark Moses (Duck Phillips), Vincent Kartheiser (Pete Campbell), Bryan Batt (Sal Romano), Michael Gladis (Paul Kinsey), Aaron Staton (Paul Kinsey), Rich Sommer ( Harry Crane) and, this season, Patrick Fishler (Jimmy Barrett) and Melinda McGraw (Bobbie Barrett). Enough said.
5. A show about something "Mad Men" is about that obscure object called desire - how the characters want something, are driven to want something, but don't know what that is because they don't even know what's in their own hearts. The theme of advertising - creating desire where none exists - is the metaphor to get at where the truth lies with us and our culture as well. A truly great TV show.
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