Don't It Drag On
Mad Men - Season 4 (2010)
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on a computer from iTunes
I admire shows that don't run their success into the ground, and I like that the start of the fourth season saw Don and Betty's divorce through. But the consequences of that decision haven't worked. Don might be the focus of Mad Men, but Betty was too good a character to lose.
In her absence, Don gets overwritten because he has more space to fill. Don "drunk" is more obvious now than in Season 1. Instead of picking up a birthday cake and parking the car beneath a bridge, he runs around the office with a Cleo award. Part of that is meant to illustrate how far Don has lost control, but it doesn't fit. Don sleeps with his secretary, then a competitor, then an anonymous woman, and finally a second secretary. What does the second secretary say that the first one didn't?
Sure, it's funny when Betty drives around the neighborhood like Michael Myers. And John Slattery can get a laugh with the inside jokes he tries as actor and director both. But Roger not knowing Megan's name feels clubbish, not cute, and the season, taken as a whole, felt like a half-season's worth of ideas stretched out to take up 13 episodes. They can't reset the firm forever, and there won't be another newcomer as good as Jared Harris has been.
On the other hand, "The Suitcase" was possibly my favorite episode of the entire series. I love Anna's ghost but I hate what they did to Betty. I miss the foil that her background - rich, with a loveless mother and doting father - made to Don. Don didn't have money and he doesn't understand the world that Roger Sterling lives in: isn't that the heart of everything this season tried to say?
Betty knows Dick and Don both, better than Faye Miller and maybe even Anna. She used to be every bit as important as Don to the show's creators, and I for one believe that January Jones is the reason that's so. Although Peggy picks up the slack admirably as the female we're meant to care the most about in Season 4, it's condescending to all of the women on the show that I was forced into a choice between one or the other.
Is the point of the finale the idea that Don Draper hasn't changed? If so, it's a cop-out. Pete is my favorite character now, but it's because of his comedic timing. Mad Men doesn't make the same points it used to about what it means to try and make a normal life in a difficult world. Like Don, it's rudderless, but Matthew Weiner, unlike his hero, can write the ending he wants. He needs to do it sooner rather than later; anything past season 5 is going to be too little, too late.
rating: 3 out of 5 cravats
on a computer from iTunes
I admire shows that don't run their success into the ground, and I like that the start of the fourth season saw Don and Betty's divorce through. But the consequences of that decision haven't worked. Don might be the focus of Mad Men, but Betty was too good a character to lose.
In her absence, Don gets overwritten because he has more space to fill. Don "drunk" is more obvious now than in Season 1. Instead of picking up a birthday cake and parking the car beneath a bridge, he runs around the office with a Cleo award. Part of that is meant to illustrate how far Don has lost control, but it doesn't fit. Don sleeps with his secretary, then a competitor, then an anonymous woman, and finally a second secretary. What does the second secretary say that the first one didn't?
Sure, it's funny when Betty drives around the neighborhood like Michael Myers. And John Slattery can get a laugh with the inside jokes he tries as actor and director both. But Roger not knowing Megan's name feels clubbish, not cute, and the season, taken as a whole, felt like a half-season's worth of ideas stretched out to take up 13 episodes. They can't reset the firm forever, and there won't be another newcomer as good as Jared Harris has been.
On the other hand, "The Suitcase" was possibly my favorite episode of the entire series. I love Anna's ghost but I hate what they did to Betty. I miss the foil that her background - rich, with a loveless mother and doting father - made to Don. Don didn't have money and he doesn't understand the world that Roger Sterling lives in: isn't that the heart of everything this season tried to say?
Betty knows Dick and Don both, better than Faye Miller and maybe even Anna. She used to be every bit as important as Don to the show's creators, and I for one believe that January Jones is the reason that's so. Although Peggy picks up the slack admirably as the female we're meant to care the most about in Season 4, it's condescending to all of the women on the show that I was forced into a choice between one or the other.
Is the point of the finale the idea that Don Draper hasn't changed? If so, it's a cop-out. Pete is my favorite character now, but it's because of his comedic timing. Mad Men doesn't make the same points it used to about what it means to try and make a normal life in a difficult world. Like Don, it's rudderless, but Matthew Weiner, unlike his hero, can write the ending he wants. He needs to do it sooner rather than later; anything past season 5 is going to be too little, too late.
posted by NPK at 1:55 PM
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