Product Description
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Mad Men is back. Season Five of Mad Men, four-time Emmy winner
for Outstanding Drama Series and winner of three consecutive
Golden Globes, plunges into the seductive and intriguing world of
Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. Jon Hamm and the rest of the
award-winning cast continue to mesmerize as they adapt to
changing times, social revolution, and a radical world. Lust is
back. Adultery is back. Deception is back.
.com
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At the end of the eighth episode in this Mad Men season-five set
(with 13 episodes, plus bonus material, on four discs), Don
Draper (Jon Hamm) sits listening to "Tomorrow Never Knows," one
of the more sacred items in the Beatles' catalogue. Licensing an
original Beatles isn't just expensive, it's almost
impossible, so the mere fact that it's there is a testament to
this show's popularity and accl. It also speaks to creator
Matthew Weiner and his team's uncanny skill at weaving together
multiple storylines while also immersing viewers in the time and
place they happen; this season it's the seminal years of 1966 and
'67, when folks started smoking joints instead of s,
dropping instead of sipping scotch, and seeing their casual
racism and misogyny begin to give way, albeit stubbornly, to more
enlightened views.
Of course, Mad Men is mostly about the characters who work at
the Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce advertising agency, as well as
those in their orbit. Don, who remains the most compelling
character and is still at the center of this universe, has a hot
young wife, Megan (Jessica Paré), who seems to have tamed his
wandering eye for now; but although she shows a genuine flair for
the ad game, she still wants to be an actress. Pete Campbell
(Vincent Kartheiser), who's grown from an obnoxious little twerp
into a marginally less obnoxious, slightly older twerp, has
issues at work, at home… and outside the home. Peggy Olson
(Elisabeth Moss), a likable sort trying to keep her head above
water in a world dominated by arrogant, entitled men, makes some
serious life changes. Roger Sterling (John Slattery), still a cad
and still cracking wise ("Listen honey," he tells a prostitute,
"I'm not going to bore you with compliments"), enters into a most
unexpected affair. Joan (Christina Hendricks) deals once and for
all with her soldier husband. And Lane Pryce (Jared Harris)…
well, suffice to say that it's not a good year for SCDP's money
man.
As always, the show's production values--art direction, sets,
clothes, music--are brilliant and spot on. So is the writing,
especially the dialogue ("You're a grimy little pimp," Lane says
to Pete, knocking him silly in a fist fight). The writers also
manage to seamlessly interpolate current events like the Richard
Speck and Charles Whitman murder sprees, England's victory in the
World Cup, and author Truman Capote's Black and White Ball (the
subject of a separate bonus feature, as is the Uniform Time Act
of 1966, which formalized daylight savings). The best show on TV?
That's arguable, but there are very few worthy competitors. --Sam
Graham