I try staying away from any TV shows that is all the rage and only watched a show when it is finished or the hype died down.
After two episodes of this, why does any critics or viewers considered it to be the one of the greatest televisions series made? The stories felt like a female fantasy. I meant all the characters are like herds, the men and women are defined by the materials they own, the clothes they wear, the money they have. No male characters have any honor and accountability toward their family or organization. Every characters are selfish. The entire female workforce treating infidelity from their bosses like it is thing to admire and aspire to. The race inequality sub-themes are extremely heavy handed and felt too distracting for no good reason. I studied graphic design and marketing, and the process in real life are far more exciting than what this show offered.
I know this show is written by women, and geared toward women (they sure loved stories that glamorized infidelity, materialism and assholes males) but it felt too much style and scarcely any substances. I don't mind shows written for women and filled with characters that are petty and I never liked (I liked Big Love and watched Pretty Little Liars as a guilty pleasures) but this show is boring, annoying, and soulless.
Will it get any better? The themes getting more thought-provoking, the characters more complex (pettiness and selfishness not the only dimensions) and the story-lines more interesting? Or is it just an overrated soap opera, respected only because almost all women are plebs and critics want to say they like women point of views being shown on TV?
extremely overrated the audience was very proud about the supposedly dense formal structure of the episodes (witness the countless Onion AV dissertations), but at its core it was just a tawdry soap opera with hacky character writing. I felt it was a failure as a period piece too, it presented a glamorized, modern, simplistic idea of what those times were like.
Brayden Parker
it moves away from product-of-the-week and towards full-blown soap opera territory. don even gets a secret past.
Jaxon Harris
The dirty secret of this show is that no one watched it.
The night its last episode aired I Love Lucy reruns kicked its ass (which is true for most things. The old sitcoms blow the doors out of all the current year faggotry.)
Brayden Gray
mad men sold to netflix for $1 million an episode though, Nielsen ratings don't tell the whole story anymore
Jose Carter
Any links?
I am fine with soap elements. I just cannot understand the raving praises when it is very very shallow in ideas, characterizations and themes. Style, no substances whatsoever and very boring. I just watched it after rewatching Breaking Bad and the Simpsons and I could not understand why anyone would talk about Walter White to Don Draper in the same sentence. One had depth, the other just got style.
Wyatt Cox
avclub.com/tv/mad-men/?season=1 learn to use google though don draper becomes a deeper character than he is in the first episode, not as interesting as people seemed to think but they did flesh him out kind of the opposite of breaking bad tbh, walter white started out complex and interesting and became cartoonish and cliched
Sebastian Morales
I understand the criticism but it worked overall with the way the show is going. I like it tbh, most shows tried to maintain what people loved about it, but Breaking Bad embraced the changes. Walt become cartoonish because the story changed slowly from the realistic story of a nerd dabbling in crimes into a mythical story of a crime king. With fulminated mercury and Saul Goodman, there is no way the show can still have the tone of season 1 forever and be good, and the writers are right in steering toward that direction. I knew they are going to flesh him out will him and his become fascinating or just another bland fictional character.
Colton Ross
*will him and his story actually interesting or depth for depth sake?
Kevin Carter
if you liked the later seasons of breaking bad, you'll probably adore mad men tbh. enjoy!
Tyler Perez
How?
Lucas Adams
What I am saying is that Breaking Bad could be a lot worse. The changes in season 4 and 5 is not handled as well as it could have but it is not shit by any means.
Mason Green
I disagree, the scene where gus walks around with his face melted off completely fucked my suspension of disbelief and almost made me stop watching
Xavier Long
Do you not get the point of that scene? Gus walked out of the room with his face half-blown is an indication that this shows is a fantastical crime show, not a realistic ones. Heisenberg is a mythical being. That scene shred out the pretension that it is in anyway otherwise. 22:40 to 25:48 in the video
The problem with that episode is that the scheme needed a lot of luck, the bomb is too big, and Brock poisoning is not thought-of properly and thus unbelievable.
Hudson Taylor
you sound like you're trolling, but just in case: season 1 was unambiguously realistic in style, complete with an unenthusiastic handjob for a milquetoast muffintop in briefs. the idea that the gus scene was a carefully planned carefully timed literary pivot is offensive even as a joke tbh
Cooper Jackson
Loved it. It's a pretty good period piece, a soap opera where nothing significant really happens, but it's still entertaining to watch.
Isaiah Morgan
I am not trolling. It is clearly not planned well but I understand the idea behind it. I guess we have to agree to disagree on its quality but here is the last point I made for Breaking Bad. Season 1: The realistic style led into Walt using magical chemical processing skills to blowed up a high-ranking criminal lair, destroyed a heavily secure steel door and donned a hat and a super villian identity. The audience are not going to buy that realism for too long and they will lost their suspension of disbelief like you did. Which is why the writers made a conscious decision to make it more fantastical as the time moves on. >>That scene where Gus walked out of the room, did not need to be there, we knew he was killed, but the writers wrote it that way to re-invoked the style of the pink bear, the eye, the coincidence. In order words, it is a literary device whether you think it is good or not.
Let me explain further, my dislike for the two episodes I watched. It is simplistic, boring and plebian but very pretensious and heavy-handed that it really annoyed me than any soap or crappy shows I watched recently. At least soaps like pretty little liars seemed aware of what they are and did not pretend to be high art. This one seemed to failed a s period piece too, liked said. That views of the 60s is too stereotypical to believe in.
Brayden Harris
What I am really asking is it always going to be that pretentious and annoying?
Asher White
yeah the chemical scenarios got increasingly unrealistic and snuck up on you. Even around season 3 I was enjoying it less, personally. but I don't think they always wanted it to be a cartoon. the scene where the methhead murders her husband in season 2 was obviously meant to be quite serious and gritty. but the lack of realism didn't matter to me as much as the cartooning of the main characters. they transitioned from complex characterization to portrayal of WW as a badass antihero. the fallout with his wife really rang false – why the fuck is she supposed to be so offended that he's making millions for them by cooking meth? the murky morality of the beginning moved to crisp black & white
Jaxon Rivera
you have obviously never read much about vietnam. they would find doped up gooks moving in situations exactly like gus's position.
Grayson Cox
THey don't want it to be a cartoon but they want it to be slowly become a fantasy because otherwise they would not have the mercury scene. The episode of the atm marchine is followed by a song about Hiesenberg the urban legend, so I think that is always the plan. I think that while Walt is clearly became less complex, other characters like Jesse, Skylar and Hank became more developed and complicated. The fallout rang false, but it is true to the wife character, in season 3 she did not understand what her husband went through and think only of the lies he told her (selfish bitch), in 4 and 5, she think little of the money and occupied with the thought of her children safety (suburban mom). Yeah i don't like that too, but it is not the show where you explore morality.
Cooper Morgan
...
Jacob Smith
Same here.
I marathoned Mad Men last year, it's a soap opera at its core.
But some episodes and some characters actually get better.
The last couple of seasons are rubbish, though.
Carson Myers
It's a really good show, I liked it.
James Howard
I watched the first episode and stopped it once i got to the part where the man has lunch with women because of how sjw-lite she was.
It looks like a decent show, but it's clearly more leftist biased political propaganda. The political incorrectness or the sex appeal doesn't wash out whatever condescending speech i'm guess is going to follow.
Adrian Sanchez
Pretty much the point, mate. Don's entire journey of his past, duel identity, lying, boozing, sleeping around, all the stress and struggle leads him to find peace… and then immediately use that peace as fuel for an ad campaign.
Its a very cynical ending and is meant to be feel like a slap in the face.
Landon Kelly
feminist propaganda circlejerk show
Bentley Martin
Welcome to society.
Hudson Perry
Ugh, I can't believe that you guys actually watch this pro-feminist, man-hating jewish propaganda. Every male is portrayed as bumbling, inept, and chauvinistic, while of course the women are all flawless angels who are STRONK & INDEPENDENT and DON'T NEED NO MAN. Nothing but puerile historical revisionism, typical of today's liberal socialist Marxist feminized media. Ugh, this entire "show" (note the quotation marks) is obviously a soap opera for SJW tumblristas, I can't even fucking talk about this pedantic, shallow garbage, it's setting off my PTSD.
