All this talk of TV in class and everyone sharing their favorite shows has got me very excited to re-watch all my personal favs over the holidays, which I will list in another post, but it also got me thinking about the difference between Film & Television and how polarizing it seemed to be. I think this is best exemplified by people’s reaction to, or in this case, lack of reaction to Mad Men, one of my all time most loved and respected shows.

With film, there is so much time, effort and money, that goes into the look and production of a film, that even if you fail to engage with the story or the characters chances are you will still get something from the cinematography, art direction, set construction, etc. Conversely, with episodic television, set design and location, art direction and costume are all kept fairly consistent so as to produce content quickly and economically. This also restricts how inventive you can be with cinematography, making most of the camera work fairly systematic. How many different camera angles and movements can you get in Jerry’s apartment?

This paring back of the process leaves TV heavily reliant on character, and as such, heavily reliant on the viewers reaction to the characters, as to whether the show is popular.

So I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised when a number of people in class where underwhelmed with Mad Men, which I thought was just universally respected as television of the highest caliber.

To me, Don Draper is a fascinating character, watching his closeted past slowly revealed and his shame of it, enabled me to better understand a lot of his motivations in the show, gaining a tolerance for his actions to a degree, but still being fucking annoyed when he would succumb to the latest broad willing to open their legs.

It’s always interesting to watch the office politics and relationships, especially when they are so subtly advanced. The regret and repressed desire Pete has for Peggy on comes out every 3 or so episodes, and the sexual orientation of artist Salvatore is a gem of a side plot, except that it’s only addressed maybe once or twice a season!

Which brings me on to Peggy, the most interesting character in Mad Men, not because of what she does or says, but because of what she represents. Her promotion from receptionist to copy writer and the subsequent friction shows how life was for women trying to advance in a male dominated society in the early 60’s. Her occasional trips to bohemian Brooklyn, or underground parties in the village hints at a nascent counter-culture on the cusp of exploding. And her relationship with Don subtly suggests a time where men and women are considered equal in everything that they do.

Other highlights include, set decoration that spot on down to the month sometimes, style and elegance in every costume, historical tie-ins that give such great context, that really helps you get into the lives of the people you are watching, and such mellifluous voices from the majority of the cast, that they almost seem to cast for timbre as well.

But most of these things are only appreciated on a secondary level that you will never get to if you don’t first love the characters, which i suppose is just a matter of taste.

After all, I found Buffy Summers to be a self-centered, whiny bitch, so you can’t please everyone.