"Mad Men" -- *Final* Season Official Thread (possible spoilers) (part 2)

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by Ken_McAlinden, Dec 8, 2014.

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  1. thgord

    thgord In Search of My Next Euphoric Groove

    Location:
    Moorpark, CA
    Interesting how Betty's untimely demise mirrored the song "bye bye birdie", Don's pet name for her.
     
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  2. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    Well, watched the second part, and better than the first part. Ending ? Guess the show had to finish, really loved the characters, all of them. Emotional for sure. Regarding double dipping with BD box ( looks a tad cheap, also...Amazon has it for over 200 bucks in Europe)not sure it's worth it. Think Jon Hamm should keep that Don Draper type persona( unfortunately ) too typecasted now. Perhaps playing a private dick. A 1940s/50s gumshoe tv series would be welcome.
     
    Last edited: Dec 24, 2015
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  3. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    Getting rid of my Collection for the blu Ray complete box. Is there any Special Collectors box on way also ?
     
  4. boyjohn

    boyjohn Senior Member

    I got this for xmas. You see that thing that looks like a book, well that has all the discs packed into it, each little page has two discs in it, separated by a divider (no holder, just jammed in there). Trying to get the discs out is an interesting experience lol
     
  5. Clark V Kauffman

    Clark V Kauffman Forum Resident

    Location:
    Des Moines, Iowa
    That looks similar to the packaging that was used for the initial release of Season One of "The Virginian." Looks fabulous, keeps everything nicely organized, and stores nicely ... but, yeah, there's the worry of sliding the discs in and out of those stiff cardboard pages.

    [​IMG]
     
  6. thgord

    thgord In Search of My Next Euphoric Groove

    Location:
    Moorpark, CA
    There have been A Lot of complaints about how the Complete Series packaging turned out. I would plan on alternate storage of the discs if you end up pulling the trigger.
     
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  7. Bryan

    Bryan Starman Jr.

    Location:
    Berkeley, CA
    The version currently out is the "special collectors" version. I suspect we'll see a barebones release with just the discs later this year. That's the one I'm waiting for.
     
  8. Bryan

    Bryan Starman Jr.

    Location:
    Berkeley, CA
    Did they re-do the menus for season one, or are they still the same generic ones from the original standalone release?
     
  9. boyjohn

    boyjohn Senior Member

    I don't have the original season 1, so I don't know
     
  10. modrevolve

    modrevolve Forum Resident

    I've always been curious..when Seasons 1-3 were released on blu, did they include slipcases like the rest of the seasons have? I bought them later on.

    The box is very cool but I have no room for it, so I'm sticking with the individual cases.
     
  11. Bryan

    Bryan Starman Jr.

    Location:
    Berkeley, CA
    Well, do the menus seem like generic blu-ray menus from circa 2007? If so, they didn't change them.
     
  12. boyjohn

    boyjohn Senior Member

    Here is what it looks like

    [​IMG]
     
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  13. Bryan

    Bryan Starman Jr.

    Location:
    Berkeley, CA
    I'll have to pop in my season one discs to confirm, but I believe they added that silhouette and bottom border. The originals just had the generic-looking menu as seen on the left and the clips playing on the right. So they did spruce it up a little bit. Thanks for satisfying my curiosity.
     
  14. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    The complete Mad Men series blu-ray box :UK Suitcase version.
    Anybody get this version?
     
  15. tonyc

    tonyc Forum Resident

    Location:
    United States
    For those who do not know, Audience on DirecTV is running "Mad Men" commercial free most weeknights at 6 p.m. They are a few episodes into Season 1.
     
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  16. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    A feature film would have been welcome when the show was at its peak,missed opportunity. A lot easier a feature film from Mad Men than say Breaking Bad or Lost.
     
  17. GregM

    GregM The expanding man

    Location:
    Bay Area, CA
    I haven't seen any good films resulting from a multi-season TV show. Entourage had the best shot at it, but the movie sucked. It was far worse than the average half hour episode--a real missed opportunity.

    The way I see it, we're lucky Mad Men was picked up by any network after HBO passed on it. I guess it didn't matter how successful Matthew Weiner had proved himself on Sopranos. A show about a philandering self-made creative director in the '60s just doesn't sound like a recipe for good ratings.

    But it was arguably the greatest TV show ever made.
     
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  18. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    Classy for sure, up there in TV heaven.
     
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  19. sgtmono

    sgtmono Seasoned Member

    Where can I read some good, meaty analysis of this show? The AV Club and Vulture posts just don't cut it for me.
     
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  20. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    What's with the Rolling Stone list on best tv shows LOST was placed at 38.
    Homeland "99"

    Sopranos 1
    Wire 2
    Breaking Bad 3

    Mad Men 10
     
  21. RTW

    RTW Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago
    I loved Mad Men but Breaking Bad was a better show, narratively, because of its sense of momentum. At the end of the day as great as Mad Men was (consistent most of the way through, with a minor dip in Season 6, IMO), we spent a lot of time guessing where it might end up and it didn't actually go much of anywhere. There were some amazing character arcs (esp. Peggy's) but it spent a lot of time treading water. And it ended sort of randomly, when it probably could have gone on in the same direction for several more seasons. On the other hand, Breaking Bad knew what it had to do and did it, and benefited from that as it watched its audience grow exponentially (and incomparably) as it finished telling the story.
     
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  22. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    Mad Men
    Peaked end of season 5 imo.

    My top 3 would be BB. Game Of Thrones ...then Mad Men, The Wire,Boardwalk.Sopranos
     
  23. GregM

    GregM The expanding man

    Location:
    Bay Area, CA
    I'd put Sopranos and Mad Men as 1 and 2, respectively. The way they relentlessly comment upon/search for male identity in modern times (or in the case of Mad Men, in the crucible of social change that put us in our modern time) while executing so many subplots and tertiary narratives and character development is just masterful. A lot of credit has to go to Matthew Weiner. I don't use the term "genius" lightly, but I think he is a legit genius at show creation.

    I guess I see your point if the goal is to tie up a series with a neat little bow and have hefty doses of gratuitous violence and characters breaking badly (forgive the pun) along the way. But that's just not realistic; it doesn't ring true and a show where little rings true is not a contender for first place in my book. On top of that, I disagree with your sense of momentum. Maybe in the shortened last season, but before that it was all over the place, with entire shows ruined by characters reversing roles in behavior and other ways, or dedicated to such things as killing a fly. Compared to the heavy issues tackled in Mad Men and Sopranos, this was just silly.

    I actually thought MM seasons 1 or 2 endings were peaks that were never quite reached again, but the show consistently pushed. Once the backstory of Draper was played out, he lost a bit of intrigue. But he was still the most compelling character on TV after Tony Soprano. The show then stretched out creatively in other, unforeseeable ways, such as business developments or the song-and-dance routine of Bert Cooper, which Don sees in his mind's eye, The Best Things in Life Are Free. I don't think it tread water, as all the while it was showing how society revolutionized itself into modernity to finally acknowledge women in the leading role, while the everyman, Don, who could never accept himself strove for perfect harmony but only ever achieved it occasionally for his business clients to sell widgets.

    I'm really not doing the show justice in that description; it's much deeper still but it just sounds funny to dissect it at some point. In contrast, GoT, Wire and Boardwalk Empire are just incredibly well-written, acted, directed and produced shows into otherworldly fantasy, Baltimore reality and prohibition-era gangsters. None of them achieved the depth of existentialism or got inside the heads of the protagonist the way Sopranos and Mad Men did. And Sopranos also featured amazing use of humor, beyond the others.
     
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  24. RTW

    RTW Forum Resident

    Location:
    Chicago
    And Mad Men didn't pander to that? By putting Peggy and Stan together, or reuniting Pete and Trudy and moving them off into the perfect sunset, or whatever? Those were narrative moves of convenience that weren't well written. And Don, who in your words "strove for perfect harmony but only ever achieved it occasionally," ultimately hit paydirt by creating arguably the most successful and recognized advertising piece of all time... They tied it up and gave it as much of a happy ending as they just about could, Betty's brief dalliance with cancer aside. Look, the show was great at times but it floundered pretty hard in parts.
    Um, well, they're different shows, and violence was always a part of Breaking Bad, so I'm not sure what kind of argument you're trying to make here. I was simply comparing the narrative thrust of both shows. Mad Men never really had one; in the end it was just a character study. And you don't have to be "realistic" to tell a good story well, but Breaking Bad did take great pains to realistically portray the moral complexity of its two leads regardless of the realism of their circumstances.
    The narrative momentum and the building of the Breaking Bad audience is not my opinion, it's measured by fact.
    'Breaking Bad' series finale ratings smash all records
    Interesting that you think Breaking Bad didn't tackle heavy issues. Jesus.
     
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  25. GregM

    GregM The expanding man

    Location:
    Bay Area, CA
    They seemed realistic to me, as supporting characters that were heading toward those endgames. The audience had seen them go through the painful subplots that were preventing them from these outcomes that seemed both impossible to predict yet, in retrospect, inevitable. That's no small feat to pull off. Peggy and Pete were each tortured characters who had created a new life, a piece of themselves they couldn't face. It was one of the more redeeming qualities of the show that each ended up in what appeared to be a loving relationship that they had grown to accept and appreciate. The character development was in place for both, and for their partners--again no small feat, not a clichéd ending for either because of what they'd been through. Not the least of which could be at least partially attributed to what they learned by watching Don's arc.

    I still don't know whether that ad was a figment of Don's imagination as he tried to reconcile his personal failures on the commune; it's an ambivalent ending. There really was such an ad campaign; it wasn't Don Draper's. It's a rather sad commentary on our time, suggesting we as human beings have all sold out. We are not there for each other's harmony ultimately, but for a shadowy marketed representative of what we think we need. The show took chances, sure. But I don't think any of them failed and when they resonated it was pretty damn powerful. I'd agree that it won't resonate with everyone, though.

    Mad Men and Sopranos I saw as much more than a character study. Man Men used the confusion of Don Draper's identity as a study of the male role in society using the rapid changes of the late '60s to make really devastating observations about modern humanity. Sopranos did this too, but conflated or rather dispelled the honor (or lack thereof) of family and business equally to showcase the hollowness/blackness of modern man, but with really brilliant heavy doses of humor. And both had acting and writing that was really inspired and elevated. No one in the show broke character.

    My point about BB violence was that it became odd, e.g., the Gus CGI scene that didn't advance the story or character development in any way.

    I actually think that makes my points stronger; not yours. Fast food will always be more popular than a perfectly cooked line-caught salmon.

    I honestly don't know what you mean by this. It touched on some heavy issues peripherally, like dealing with chemotherapy or family pressures; but it wasn't really tackled in a heavy, substantive way; less so than Sopranos or Mad Man tackled homosexuality, even.
     
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