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63 comments in total

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108 out of 153 people found the following comment useful :-
a losing campaign, 24 July 2008
Author: gurghi-2 from Lexington, Kentucky

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Three episodes was enough. I got it: the 60s were racist, sexist, unhealthy, and unsafe. (Also, very stylish.) And aren't we viewers today so smart for knowing better?

Must every character be such a louse? So tiresome. Not that they need be likable; The Sopranos was riveting, yet almost entirely devoid of anybody I'd ever want to be actual friends with. The difference, in the 3 episodes of this I saw, is that where The Sopranos insisted that the viewer be held responsible, Mad Men seems content to be superior. It wants to both revel in the tawdry details and be righteously outraged at the outdated mores it puts on display. I don't much care for either, and a television show that asks me to do both pushes the limits of my credulity. I could feel my strings being pulled.

No, Don's 'big secret' wasn't enough for me to keep watching- and when I was told what it is, I wasn't sorry in the least. Snoresville.

Undoubtedly there are many, many shows on television that are much, much worse. I don't watch them, either.

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160 out of 275 people found the following comment useful :-
Every Episode Is Exactly the Same, & Never More Than Mediocre, 2 September 2007

Author: Xander Seavy (RiffRaffMcKinley) from United States

I stuck it out with "Mad Men" for a few weeks. I was trying to see the fantastic new show everybody kept talking about. Sadly, it wasn't there. I think people like it because it's the first scripted AMC series since "Hu$tle," because of the colors, and because it comes from Matthew Weiner of "The Sopranos." The few things I like about it are mostly style and atmosphere, not story or performance quality. In fact, the stories are very similar-- it's kind of like a miniseries that is now running indefinitely-- and the performances are actually very bad, except from Jon Hamm and Elisabeth Moss-- and the lines they deliver are still not that impressive. The attitude of "Go ahead and do this stuff-- it's not gonna kill you" would have been interesting back when we first found out that the products these people sold actually killed us. However, the show now feels clunky and dated. Then, of course, there is the sex that happens in (at least what seems like) every episode. It's almost as if viewers would dry up and crumble if they watched a show where everybody kept their clothes on. All that aside, this isn't a bad show-- just an insipidly bland and indistinguishable one.

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119 out of 214 people found the following comment useful :-
Going Nowhere, 14 August 2008

Author: thomdavid from California, United States

I am generally not a fan of series TV shows, since I don't have much time to devote to them. Still, having heard the hype surrounding "Mad Men," and seeing that the entire first season was being repeated on InDemand, I figured to make the time commitment.

The first few episodes were strong, well-written, and full of promises to come (or at least I thought). Every show of this type needs to establish its characters, relationships, and plot points. But with each successive episode, I began to get a vaguely unsettling sense that the show was actually going nowhere.

Soon, little things became bigger and bigger annoyances: I began to notice an almost fetishistic obsession with "things:" typewriters, fish sticks, bric-a-brac, as if the art director wasn't confident in his ability to establish a time period without beating us over the head with how "authentic" everything was (and it isn't, as I know this period well). Then, lead Jon Hamm plastered a single expression on his face and left it there, episode after episode, something between chronic constipation and wizened incredulity, and even the charms (there are many)of Christina Hendricks couldn't overcome my irritation.

So much could have gone right with this show, that to see how much has gone wrong is downright painful. If you're gonna write a show about reprehensible people (and nearly everyone in "Mad Men" is exactly that), then you either better have a kick-ass plot (think "The Sopranos") or give me a reason to care about what happens to the characters. Sadly, "Mad Men" fails on both points. It coulda been, but probably never will.

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78 out of 140 people found the following comment useful :-
"Mad" About You!, 20 July 2007

Author: ldavis-2 from lalaland

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

I watched only because I love the period covered. Call me old-fashioned, but I like to root for somebody. Instead, I had the "pleasure" of wasting an hour of my life on an amoral prick with a Beatnik Bimbo in the city and a clueless Marilyn Monroe look-a-like wife stashed in the suburbs. The other characters are even more one-dimensional: the men are horny a-holes, and the women (save for the token lesbian researcher) are ambitious sluts! So what the hell else is new?!

As the sneak preview made a big deal out of how "period" this was, I Googled the Reader's Digest article that had the characters' panties in a collective bunch. "Cancer by the Carton" warned that the new low-tar cigarettes which promised a "healthier smoke" were anything but. It was published in 1952 -- 8 years before the series is set!

At least the Big Tobacco Big Shot was right about the (pre-Columbian) Native Americans "giving us" tobacco. In case anyone cares, tobacco as used today was perfected by a Frenchman named Jean Nicot, for whom Nicotine was named.

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110 out of 208 people found the following comment useful :-
Lacks a spark, 12 September 2008

Author: robert-laird from United States

When this series first came out I watched it...at least the first four episodes. It looks good, the sets, the wardrobe, the actors general look. I grew up in that era and can remember what is was like. I lost interest when I came to the conclusion that the characters were all clichés, the dialogue consisted of actors making speeches to each other and the stories were boring.

I also had a problem with the amount of smoking and drinking that occurred. It soon became a distraction. Even if offices that allowed smoking and drinking, they would have never allowed as much as happens during Mad Men.

I would not recommended this series to anyone. It reminds me of a product I used to purchase, Fiddy-Faddle. The box was interesting, but what was inside was only popcorn.

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99 out of 187 people found the following comment useful :-
It's just like a retro ad! It's nice to look at, but lifeless..., 5 September 2008

Author: judrmo from United States

I really wanted to like "Mad Men", but you shouldn't have to force yourself to enjoy something. The set designs and costumes are great, and they really seem to capture the era they represent very well, but the acting and story lines leave much to be desired. Much of the acting is done in a style in which the actors don't seem to allow themselves to actually take on the persona of their character, which results in a very wooden performance. The storyline moves very slowly and ironically advertises the business of advertising as a very boring and simple career which anyone could succeed at, which I hope for the sake of advertisers is not true. This show has received rave reviews from many publications, but that may just be a response to the lack of good dramatic television and the fear of a reality television takeover. While I do think that "Mad Men" is a step in the right direction in terms of 'New American Television', I don't think it's as magnificent as it's been touted to be by other critics, but let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater, unless of course a better baby is on the way...

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129 out of 247 people found the following comment useful :-
When Bad Actors "Hamm" It Up, 5 September 2008

Author: Greta McIntosh from United States

What is striking about Mad Men is how far the quality of the actual show is from what is reported in the press.

Reading articles, you'd think this was the finest TV hour anywhere.

Alas, it's not.

From drab sets and photography to painfully awkward performances, Mad Men is at best mediocre and certainly it is a puzzle why it is getting so much of a push from its network.

Worst of all is Jon Hamm, an actor with an extremely limited ability to emote. That he could get an award for acting only makes us aware of how irrelevant awards are when it comes to rewarding good work.

It's too bad the marketing campaign for this show is a lot better than this show about marketing.

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145 out of 279 people found the following comment useful :-
Yet Another Hyped-Up Disappointment, 1 August 2008

Author: Gawain O'Donnell from United States

This is apparently becoming the norm in TV Executive circles: If your show doesn't appeal to the public, just hype it, hype it and hope the press doesn't notice.

What those tactics bring to the networks I really don't know. What I do know is that because of them, we are bombarded with shows that are really not that good and that are sold to us are being, somehow, great.

Case in point is Mad Men, a dread, colorless, poorly acted series. It's a show that just does not add up to much and definitely does not hold the attention, as exemplified by its ratings which were dismal.

But we are told that it's supposed to be great. Well, Emmy Academy, "supposed to" does not make it great, but it does make the Emmys into a joke.

And it leaves us stranded with yet another bad show that will not die.

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21 out of 32 people found the following comment useful :-
Lots of Hype for what really is a Bad Show, 8 December 2008

Author: Kathleen Grusin from United States

To read the hype on Mad Men, you'd think this show would be some sort of compelling television.

Alas, like many over-hyped shows before it, Mad Men is nothing special. It is slow, ponderous, and generally poorly acted.

In particular, one has to wonder as to why anyone would pick Jon Hamm as a good actor. The man is as frozen as a snowman and expresses himself through a series of hilariously cheesy grimaces.

Mad Men fails to give to the audience what its ads promise, which is a really bad idea. The only thing that lives up to the hype is the pretty cool title sequence.

One wishes the product had been as good as the advertising.

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39 out of 68 people found the following comment useful :-
Boring and Jon Hamm is Terrible, 27 November 2008

Author: Maxwell Kritzig from United States

Sorry but this is yet another case of the Hollywood promotional machine pushing on the public something that should have been taken back to the drawing board.

Far from living up to its hype, Mad Men is boring, predictable and unengaging.

A lot of the fault lies on John Hamm. It's hard to fathom how anyone could enjoy his performances which consist of him looking as frozen as an actor with stage fright with an occasional grimace added.

Overall, a huge miss that AMC would be well-served to cancel quickly if it doesn't want to join the fate of FX in hyping a consistently losing show like The Shield.

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