tv: Mad Men | Theo Kane

Mad Men 4x02 Don and Allison — Starting off on a sweet holiday note, Allison reads Sally and Bobby's letter to Santa to Don.

I love Christmaukkah Yule episodes. I’m a complete sucker for the holiday gags: the hopes, the gifts, the feel good messages about love, friends, and family, and the fun-time humor. Every year (after my December birthday), I take out my DVDs and re-watch the holiday episodes of my favorite shows. (Interestingly enough, I’m not a fan of the holiday movie and have not watched many of the genres “classics.”)

So I was thrilled to find myself watching Mad Men’s 4×02 “Christmas Comes But Once a Year.” We have Christmas letters to Santa, drunken holiday parties, ’60s silver tinsel trees, and a reluctant Santa. That said, I vote Mad Men for the most depressing holiday episode in existence. Thanks, Weiner, for ruining Christmaukkah Yule.

Or as Don Draper says, “It’s not that I hate Christmas; I just hate this Christmas.”

But that’s not to say I hate this episode. I just hated this episode as a Christmas episode because it was so freaking depressing. Continue reading “Mad Men 4×02 “Christmas Comes But Once a Year” TV Review”

Mad Men Public Relations Peggy — Peggy's glad she had some whiskey for this one. Because who's Don Draper? Peggy doesn't give a #$%!. Or whatever nice, formerly Catholic girls say.

I love Mad Men, and I was thrilled to sit down on Sunday evening to watch the first episode of Season Four, “Public Relations.” In fact, I stayed up later than I had planned too to watch it. However, I left feeling disappointed. Disappointed for a reason which was hard to pin down. There wasn’t anything in the episode which scream “OMG, wrong.” (Perhaps I’m too use to the easy offenses thrown at me when I watch True Blood. To think, I had to use more brain power.)

When I finally figured out what went wrong was when I realized the episode was all about Don Draper. In fact, the episode opens with the question of “Who is Don Draper?” Out of all the Mad Men characters, Don is the one I have the least affection or understanding toward. And especially when this show is set during the massive cultural changes of the 1960s (feminism, civil rights, etc.), I find myself not caring what manpain Don Draper suffers from. Don may have grown up poor, but he’s achieved the American Dream. Continue reading “Mad Men 4×01 “Public Relations” TV Review”