shapinglight | (no subject)

The Guardian loved the new Star Trek movie and gave it five stars. This is almost unprecedented in my experience for something sci-fi/fantasy related, unless it was a Tarkovsky film. I was feeling fairly meh! about this movie, not being a big 'Trek fan, but now I really want to see it (yes, I know - sheep, fence-sitter, whatever).

This post is not really about that, though. I wanted to say a few things about the second series of Mad Men, which ended in the UK on Tuesday. Boy, that was wonderful stuff!

I'd been puzzling earlier in the season as to why this program was being talked about as 'girls' telly'. I hadn't thought the first series was that at all, given that was all about the men, and they behaved very badly indeed, especially towards the women in their lives. However, I guess I can see now what people were getting at. However, I think it's too facile a description. Surely, it's just 'good' telly, isn't it, like The Wire, and as such should appeal to anyone who cares about the quality of what they watch.

That aside, this second series focused a great deal on the women, especially Betty Draper, Joan and Peggy, while never losing sight of Don Draper as the main character of focus. Draper continues to be one of the most fascinating and complex characters I've ever seen on a TV show. Just as you think you know what he's like, he changes again. The scene where he returned to Sterling Cooper and was greeted almost as a saviour not only by Peggy and Joan but also by Peter Campbell, who is desperate for Draper's respect and in this episode finally got it, was a very, very telling scene. This is not to say Draper is a 'nice' man - far from it. But I think he genuinely meant his apology to Betty and he really does have respect for women that the other male characters just don't share - though it's fun to see the way Peggy has almost become 'one of the boys' at the copy writers' meetings.

The other characters have also been fleshed out enormously this season - from Betty, who came more into her own and gained some much needed confidence, at the same time as showing a distinctly unpleasant side to her personality, to Peggy, who continued her single-minded pursuit of her dream apparently indifferent to the wreckage in her wake (poor Peter - and I never thought I'd feel sorry for him - being her latest victim), to Joan whose vulnerabilities were laid bare - I feel so sorry for her, even though on the surface she's hard as nails. You even ended up feeling something for poor old Duck Philips, who just so spectacularly shot himself in the foot.

I could go on and on, but maybe I'd better stop before I run out of superlatives. This show has done everything right IMO, and I can't wait to see the next series and see how the changing world - because it is definitely changing fast, though we still only get subtle hints of it - affects the characters. Someone - was it

shipperx? - told me that each series will be set two years after the previous one. So that means series three will be set in 1964 - Beatlemania! Mary Quant! etc etc. Can't wait.

There will be a third series, won't there? I've looked online but can't find any information. :crosses fingers:

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From:

quinara

Was this the end of the series? Huh - that makes sense, but I definitely want moar...

My favourite part of this episode was Betty’s way of saying she wanted an abortion. "It’s not a good time" - no dithering, no question of whether or not she should be able to know what effect another child would have on her life, just "it’s not a good time".

I can’t say I really felt sorry for Pete - I find him really immature, not at all wreckage in Peggy’s wake (to me she’s dealt with everything fine). As a side-note, I really want that grey dress she had with a shirt underneath it with the sailor-flap at the back...

Poor Joan. :(

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