watch season 2 of Mad Men starting 27 July 2008 on AMC

Sterling Cooper’s merger with Duck’s old firm in Britain put Don Draper in London in the mid 60’s???

Aside from the storyline itself, the story behind MadMen is fascinating. This Emmy winning series, which has had a great influence on the world of fashion and design since it first ran across our TV screens in the second half of 2007 is watched by only about 1.5 million people a week. I find the whole idea of something small, at least when compared to the audience of say CSI or Grey’s Anatomy, being so powerful very inspiring.

Mad Men!

Another brilliant episode of Mad Men!

I particularly liked the CYO Dance plot thread in which Peggy was asked by her priest to help with publicity as she is the expert as she works at Sterling-Cooper. In the end the older and “wiser” church ladies won out.

Aside from the obvious set up of the foundation for the later part of the 1960’s, it smacks of the current culture in the United States where experts are being told to mind their place by someone with the upper hand.

there was a brilliant ad for the Autos section of the New York Times today – it read “What Should Don Draper Drive?”

The exchange between Betty and Jimmy at the Stork Club was brilliant as a symbol of the era. If Betty didn’t talk about, or by this point acknowledge, Don’s being unfaithful it didn’t exist. Of course the episode closes with her throwing up on herself.

Seems quite a bit like the 60’s. By not acknowlegding the Civil Rights, Vietnam, and shallow materialism of the era America threw up all over itself by the end of the decade. Brilliant!

omg! I loved the picnic scene! So bucolic, a shiny new Cadillac up on a hill, blonde all American wife serving a lunch on a red check table cloth – it captured the spirit of the early 1960’s so well …

... especially the part when Don Draper tossed his empty beer can into the woods and Betty whisked up the table claoth after lunch leaving the paper napkins behind.

The genius in MadMen is that so many of the idealised images of the early 1960’s are shown for what they really were.

what a great theme punctuated throughout last evening’s episode, and next week : the Mad Men marathon!

more MadMen tonight at 10pm on AMC

... is something to which many of us look forward