In my continuing and unashamed efforts to promote "Mad Men" - great show, have you heard? - I now post this trailer or "sneak peak" of this Sunday's second episode. It's thin gruel, I'm afraid, and barely - and I do mean barely - hints at what you'll see this weekend, but (for us hardcore fans) something's better than nothing...
Not being at the press tour, and thus not having an opportunity to ask all the big questions at yesterday's Matthew Weiner sesh - Matthew is the show-runner and creator - then I'm going to have to ask them, and answer them myself. It's a lonely and somewhat delusional task, but someone's gotta do it. Here goes:
Have you told your AMC bosses that you're gonna end the show after five seasons?
Yup, the fact that Weiner has a five-and-over strategy in mind was the headline yesterday, but did he tell the network? Remember how pleasantly surprised ABC was when Darlton told the press tour that they were wrapping in a couple seasons? (I think they told press tour, tho coulda been somewhere else.) Poor ol' AMC finally has a hit and maybe even a Best Drama Emmy winner, and it's already OVER? If I was them, I'm not entirely sure I'd be pleased at this moment...
Is five-and-over a good idea?
Hell yeah! Five is perfect (Weiner will hop the show each season up two years, so that it'll end by '69.) Here's why. There has to be an end-point in the Don Draper story. A dramatic arc has been set - his real identity - and if you think of an arc as, well, an arc, then you realize that what goes up, must come down. Why '69? One reason: can you imagine Jon Hamm with '70s sideburns and leisure suits? God knows, I can't.
What's the deal with Peggy's baby, Matthew?
I mean, how can someone - in the course of a 44 minute episode - discover that they are pregnant and then deliver the kid? This always seemed to me like a strange misstep in one of the most sure-footed shows on TV.
Will Betty have an affair?
Of course she will, but with whom? And how will Don find out? Or will he? And will she find out about his serial affairs by 1962 when the new season begins? I mean, don't you think she should after the last part of last season hinted broadly and strongly that the scales had finally fallen from her eyes, and she realized what a cad the perfect husband really was? Don't you just love questions that are answered with a whole bunch of other questions?
What about Roger - played to incandescent perfection by one of the great character actors in TV history who is none other than John Slattery? Will Roger be back?
I haven't seen the new season opener yet, but I'm worried about Rog, with his bad ticker and doomed personality, much as Victor Lang was doomed to be offed by a fence post in "Desperate Housewives." I just can't see this show without Slattery. I don't WANT to see it without him. He's the core of the show - the man who believes the lie and lives the lie and has perfected the lie. To Roger, a lie is the truth, and Slattery has captured this alternate universe aspect of his character so perfectly that when he's on screen, the whole show tilts visibly and forcibly in his direction. Please, Matthew. Please tell me Rog is OK.
How are you gonna incorporate black characters on the show this season?
You spoke of this, I guess, in that NYTimes piece or maybe somewhere else - I don't remember where. But this is the '60s - not to point out the obvious - and not 2008. I think I counted two black characters last season. The elevator operator and the janitor who glanced - in shock and amusement - at the silhouette of Peggy's foot during the scene that, umm, yielded the baby. Peggy ultimately got her promotion because she understood female products, like that weight-loss-vibrator-sex-device. Will a black character be developed in a similar way?
(Pix courtesy of AMC.)
I love these gimmicks - they offer the possibility that I too will one day be as famous as Spencer Pratt, and maybe get my own reality show.
But I'm getting ahead of myself. Here's the deal: AMC is launching a contest to a.) get more people to watch its break-out hit; and b.) Offer a lucky Pratt wannabe to stand next to Don Draper and tell him how to create a new campaign for Clearasil.... The cameo will air in the third season (which I don't believe AMC has even officially announced yet.)
Details, per AMC: "Just perform pre-selected lines for Don Draper, Pete Campbell, Roger Sterling, Betty Draper, Peggy Olson or Joan Holloway and send us your video." I checked out some of the lines, and they're pretty well-known to "MM" fanatics - like the one after Roger recovers from his heart attack and tells Joan Holloway (right) what, ummm, a nice lady she is, and how lucky he is to have, ummmm, known her. Or the time when Campbell says he invented direct marketing.
AMC says to go here for more details and how to enter, etc.
And...the second season begins July 27. But you already knew that.
The second-season premiere of our favorite series, "Mad Men," draws closer -- just six weeks from this Sunday.
But if you need your "MM" fix before July 27, AMC will be airing "The Best of Mad Men: Season One," a 30-minute special premiering Sunday at 11:30 a.m.
The special offers interviews with cast members Jon Hamm (Don Draper), Elisabeth Moss (Peggy Olson), Vincent Kartheiser (Pete Campbell), January Jones (Betty Draper), Christina Hendricks (Joan Holloway) and John Slattery (Roger Sterling) as they reminisce about favorite moments on set and what they really think about the sex, lies and storyline surprises from the first season.
Here's Hamm talking about one of his most powerful moments. “It’s one of the first times where you really see my character show emotion,” says Jon Hamm about the scene where Don Draper pays off his younger brother to leave him alone. “The guy who played my brother (Jay Paulson) was really excellent. I just remember shooting and thinking, ‘This guy is amazing.’ The scene was incredibly powerful. That was the only time on the set where the camera crew actually applauded.”
And by the way, the DVD of the first season drops on July 1.
I’m really gonna miss “Mad Men.”
But I’m glad that it’ll be back in the summer of 2008. Something to look forward to, along with finding out whether Willie Randolph will still be managing the Mets.
Anyway, last night’s finale was plenty intense: Don finally showing some emotion (learning the fate of his brother, returning to an empty house) was a satisfying breakthrough. And Betty’s first tentative steps away from being a submissive housewife was a nice touch as well.
But the pregnant Peggy (and she didn’t know it?) storyline was right out of grade-Z soap opera. Peggy sure has looked porky the past few months — and I guess it’s been about nine months since she had that late-night tryst with groom-to-be Pete, so it wasn’t a total surprise. But can’t “Mad Men” do better than that? (You just know that Peggy is gonna give away the baby when next season arrives, the better to focus on her new career as junior copywriter.)
All I can say, it’s gonna be a lot more fun in ‘61.
(And very cool was the shots of the wrap party. I always wondered what the actors looked like as their 2007 selves, not their 1960 characters, and now I can rest peacefully)
What did you think of "The Mad Men" finale? Post here.
