The Romanoffs

I'm just rewatching this again, and amazed at Matt Weiner's brilliance. Each episode ends on a complex note of equilibrium or reconciliation after much tension that he painstakingly creates. And he relates it all back to Romanoff legacy in often subtle or convoluted ways. I think he was heavily involved in writing and directing each episode. It's an overlooked masterpiece.

Sadly, it appears MW is roadkill on the #metoo highway. I don't think he's working on anything new, which is a real shame. He's more talented than Woody Allen or many others whose transgressions were worse and whose careers should have desintegrated long before his. I am left wondering what other inspiration he had for other shows that we may never get to see.

 

It's on Prime. The title sequence is quite something, with the Romanovs being massacred to the tune of Tom Petty's Refugee, and then a trail of blood leading to photos of all the descendants.

 

I think so. Mad Men and Romanoffs showed more sophistication in writing and directing than anything done by Allen, and his contributions to Sopranos were more impressive to me than any Woody Allen movie.

In Romanoffs, Weiner bested Allen at his own game in the New York story of an affair (Expectation, episode 4). In the hands of Allen this would have been an immature, formulaic story of unrequited love from the male lead perspective. Have you seen Expectation? It's a masterpiece.

It's impossible to know what your point is when you post four of the same emoticons and zero words, but if you're referring to the transgressions of each against women there's no question that Woody is far worse, and frankly it goes to his lack of character that he can blame everyone but himself. Weiner doesn't seem to have that problem, and never had Allen's trademark creepy fetish for underage girls.

 

My emoticons are for your hijacking of your own thread to trash Allen, who has no connection to the thread's intended topic of discussion.

 

Of course there was a connection: the central theme of Weiner's work is comparable to much of Allen's work; The Romanoffs centers around people having affairs. The fourth episode in particular is worthy of comparison to any number of Woody Allen's films, and as I said it compares favorably. I made the connection. Others did, too, of course. In the words of an Atlantic writer, "The Romanoffs feel like a series of Woody Allen films."

There, you see? A connection. You needn't take my word for it.

The other connection is the allegations against both directors, but at least Weiner's, while cringeworthy, were not nearly as disgusting as Allen's. And Weiner took responsibility for it. Allen goes on making films as if nothing wrong happened while Weiner was so deeply impacted that The Romanoffs is the last thing he ever produced. It's worth mentioning that's a shame.

 

I don't know what happened, or what Weiner did, but if it's true that he won't be producing anymore, then it surely is a loss for TV. Mad Men is one of my favorite TV series. Then again, so is The Wire, but I was less impressed with what David Simon produced after that show. Maybe it was going to be the same for Weiner and Mad Men. Maybe Mad Men was his zenith. I very much enjoyed The Romanoffs but it did not leave a lasting impression on me.

 

He had an inappropriate relationship with one of his production assistants, and was abusive toward her. At first he denied it but later admitted it, apologized, and has been out of public view ever since. Christina Hendricks and I think other actors have come to his defense.

Everything Weiner did resonates very strongly with me--moreso than any other TV director. At first I felt The Romanoffs was a let-down but after watching it a third time through, I think each episode is a self-contained masterpiece as well as part of more intricate tapestry MW was weaving.

The episodes show a depth and breadth in his development as a director that made me want to know what he might work on next. I was more enthused for that than anything else on TV, with the possible exception of Season 6 of BCS. But sadly it doesn't look like MW is active anymore.

I liked The Wire, too, and Simon is a great producer and writer with a background in journalism. He is obsessed with authenticity and arguably missed his true calling as a documentary producer. He will never have the creativity or emotional impact in his work that we enjoyed with MW.

 

Maybe. Maybe not.

Mad Men was such a drag, things started to move only after the 4th season. I am still angry at myself for spending so much time watching the whole thing.

 

Mad Men certainly resonated with me, and like The Wire, its world felt authentic to me, or at least the zeitgeist of the era felt true. What did you think of Mindhunter (which is co-written by two Weiner writers)? Some called it Man Men with serial killers. Personally I loved it and I even see it as the last convulsion of The Golden Age of TV. I wasn't happy to hear Fincher isn't going through with it (for now, but chances for more seasons are slim, since budget was getting smaller and smaller).

Good to hear The Romanoffs is so rewatchable.

 

Yeah. I believe he was still doing that hand sign when they found him. Tough guy, or something else.

 

Maybe a couple of episodes were good, the rest average or worst. Most stories were very slight that did not justify the budget or running times.

Seemed like a vanity project for MW, Mad Men far superior on every level.

 

Yeah, that's what I thought on first viewing. Only after watching each episode 3 times each do you start to see the maturity and resolution of the episodes at the point each of them ends, like the tension-release of a master jazz or blues musician. The show is not comparable to Mad Men. It doesn't follow the same character or group of characters, so if anyone is expecting a character study like Mad Men or Sopranos that follows the same character through multiple seasons, they are going into it with the wrong expectations, which is a problem and will prevent you from appreciating it. I fell in that trap as well, on first viewing. But if you're really going to compare it to Mad Men, you'd have to acknowledge that the Romanoffs characters' lives were often impacted more profoundly in a single episode than many characters in Mad Men were impacted in their entire arc. And while I think you could make a valid point about Romanoffs being a vanity project, each episode is done well in its own way, unlike say the Woody Allen vanity project Shadows and Fog, which is just a mess.

 

Have to agree. I only watched Mad Men (all seasons) once but there are so many moments that I will never forget, starting from the very first moment in the very first episode of Mad Men when Don Draper is in a club and asks a black waiter a question about cigarettes. I knew right there that I was watching something special. It's the unerasable moments that define visual arts.

 

You're far more generous than I. I made it through the entire series last year, but couldn't tell you anything about it.

 

Mad Men is a much different show, a blockbuster built on the charisma and philandering of the Jon Hamm character, that not-so-subtly showed the characters navigating the cultural issues of the '60s and early '70s. But speaking of the very first episode and cultural issues, the racism of the French toward the North African immigrants, and how it resolves in E1 of Romanoffs was handled with such maturity right up to the surprise/twist ending that, by comparison, Mad Men was handled with less maturity.

Like the above post suggests, if you're not paying attention, you miss what's memorable or great about it. That's a shame because it really rewards your attention.

 

As the author of the above post, I can assure you that I paid attention. The show was, by and large, poorly written and realized.

 

Even on first viewing, before I came to appreciate any of the episodes as I do now, I immediately recognized the production quality was far above average, with good writing, acting and direction. Weiner is a known perfectionist and it shows, even if the episodes don't resonate with you. Can you give an example of any episode being "poorly written and realized"? Obviously you didn't like them, but that's a different matter entirely. As worlds unto themselves, they are tight, symmetrical, waste no scenes or dialog, and follow the story through a beginning, middle and ending in logical fashion.

 

I think the surprise twist in episode 1 was laughable. Failed to convince me on any level.

 

Really? Because it was just as surprising to the main characters, who were genuinely shocked at their real feelings. They were all ready to suppress those feelings, but the twist was that real love can strike in the most unlikely people in unforeseen situations. It was a moment of disarming joy and paid off the underlying motivations of each character beautifully. I didn't quite grasp it on my first two viewings but after that I was able to appreciate it on every level. What an ending! It was Truffautian -- I think much of it was a nod to Truffaut. Brilliant.

 

So I wasn't paying attention? Thanks!

So I love a more juvenile TV show? Thanks again for being so honest. I didn't know that about myself.

To be honest, I have no defence. I liked The Romanoffs very much. I could watch TV like that every night for the rest of my life, but somehow I don't remember much of it, except for occasionally thinking that these could have been Woody Allen movies. That the show is not deeply etched in my memory is for me the biggest difference between Mad Men and The Romanoffs. Yes, I did not watch The Romanoffs 3 times. Guilty!