newcritics.com

So Don Draper, a year after Thornhill hit the screen in that creamy, matted Technicolor, has neither a spy caper nor a goofy, madcap home renovation to offer. He's merely dark and haunted, but why? Tonight perhaps we find out.

Back shortly - pre-episode predictions welcome.

And here we go - Matthew Weiner" "one the periods of greatest promiscuity." Hmm.

"Creative helps sell" - a pre-sex line mid-town hotel line if I ever heard one. Not that I have.

Andrew Sullivan is a fan - so far (he's sticking around like the rest of us, intrigued and waiting for something to happen):

What intrigues me about the program is the incredible attention to detail. The producers have really done an amazing job of capturing every aspect of life in those times precisely accurately. I was only a child during that era, but it all looks right to me. For example, in one scene the lead actor opens a can of beer and it is the old fashioned flat-top can that one needed a can opener to open. It made me wonder where they found those old cans, which haven't been manufactured since at least the 1970s.

I can see where the plot is going. The men are in total control and appear to have it all. In their own way, so do the women. But none of them are happy. Their lives are empty and meaningless even though they have achieved the "American Dream."

"They need their own accounts, beyond the family." Executive accounts. This was once recommended to me as a good way to manage money, as a matter of fact. Keep some money aside, for, well, what comes up. No sense worrying the little lady.

And then there's this from the Club for Growth blogger Andrew Roth (who sees the show as a sort of economic-social report from the early days of consumer growth):

Just from that, you know there's an underlying arrogance to the show and its leading characters. And that's definitely the case, but I think the show actually revolves around a line from the pilot episode that any game theorist can appreciate. One of the "mad men", Salvatore, said, "We’re supposed to believe that people are living one way, and secretly thinking the exact opposite? That’s ridiculous."

And as the main character, Don Draper, puts it, "Advertising is based on one thing - happiness". But the show isn't about happiness at all. These guys are married, but misogynistic. Back then, divorce was unacceptable, even though adultery was common place. People smoke and drank at work (even doctors). They were reckless, but in control. And the show lays all of that on real thick.

"Can't you even say my name." That's twice. Back where?

Note: why are the women in this series so incredibly uncomfortable in their own skins? It's unsettling - like they literally can't stand to be who they are, in the clothes they're in, in the relationships they have. Wives, secretaries, lovers all - seemingly trapped. And, I fear, not in character, not in society, not in 1960. But in costume.

Lance suggests it's a theme, but I think it's the clothing. It's so perfect, that it stifles. Yet is never seemed to make, say, Lucy a stiff - she moved. As Lance says, so did Laura Petrie - and our moms.

Jim Wolcott suggests we're off by at last a year - JFK-land in style and young family worship at least way before Camelot (which, of course, was named after Kennedy was dead).

Oh, and once again Don Draper whiffs at a pitch meeting. If you ain't eating Wham, you ain't eating ham.

"...the wrong business..." - Man, I'd like to learn more about the damned business. Wasn't this the go-go times of the new consumer? Where's the innovation, the joy, the edge, the ambition.

Ah, and last week all you bleeding hearts were taken with Pete the Predator...aha! He wanted to whore his wife for a byline in the New Yorker. What would William Shawn think?

These people are incredibly horrible people.