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Tag: jon hamm

  • Mad Men review: “The Benefactor”


    Matt Weiner is a stickler for historical verisimilitude. Whether it’s the shade of a woman’s hair, the length of her skirt, or the night CBS aired an episode of The Defenders. “The Benefactor” aired in the spring of 1962, and its three regular sponsors pulled their ads for the night. The episode was controversial at the time as it presented an unequivocal argument for the legalization of abortion, and it set the show on a course to presenting more issues of import.

    For Harry Crane – the always wonderful Rich Sommer, it meant a $25 raise and promotion to the head of the new Television Department at Sterling-Cooper.

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  • Mad Men review: “Flight 1”

    On February 20, 1962 at 14:47 UTC, the Mercury spaceship Friendship 7 containing Col. John Glenn set off from Cape Canaveral. This was the first American orbital flight, coming after several delays while the Atlas rockets were tested and ready for safe use. The five-hour mission was a complete success and the newly minted hero splashed down at 19:43 UTC.

    On March 1, Col. Glenn was honored with a ticker tape parade in Manhattan.

    But tonight’s episode wasn’t about heroic moments in American history. It was about obligations and expectations. On March 1, while John Glenn was enjoying his parade, American Airlines Flight 1 crashed into Jamaica Bay shortly after takeoff from Idlewild Airport (now JFK.) All 95 souls aboard were lost, and in the world of Mad Men, one of those souls was Pete Campbell‘s father.

    For the remainder of the episode, Pete tries to figure out how to behave, how to act, and what to do.

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  • Mad Men review: “For Those Who Think Young”

    Fourteen months, thousands of cigarettes, and one beard later, we return to the offices of Sterling-Cooper and its denizens. In the first season of Mad Men, creator Matthew Weiner braced his agency against the rising tide of youth culture. But even against the backdrop of JFK’s generational campaign, 1960 was still dominated by the ways and mores of an earlier time. The few cracks that did show were personal rather than cultural.

    Now in early 1962, the future is seeping through a bit more.

    By making the timejump, Weiner has pulled a cover back over his characters. At the end of last season, we knew too much about these people. Less than we might know today about a stranger in a restaurant, carrying on a cellphone conversation oblivious to the people around her, but more than Weiner wants us to know about Don Draper and those around him. What we can surmise is that accommodations have been made all around:

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