Mad Men Round Up!

I know, I know, I picked a hell of a time to slack off and miss posting. At this point there have been two incredible episodes of Mad since I last posted. I’ll probably skip the Game of Thrones talk, but hit the jump for some spoilery stuff about Mad Men.

Sunday Night Roundup - April 20, 2014

What a great episode of Mad Men! Was a disturbing scene in Game of Thrones! More stuff after the break...

Sunday Night Roundup - April 13, 2014

Well, this was an eventful Sunday night, wasn’t it? (Mad Men and Game of Thrones spoilers after the jump)

Season Seven Soon

I've been missing Mad Men since the minute after the last episode of season six aired. Finally, season seven begins April 13, and in the meantime I'll just watch this trailer over and over.  By the looks of things we're getting closer to the end of the 1960s and maybe into the 1970s. Betty's got the bouffant, Pete's going baldish, and of course Don looks exactly the same. I'm tempted to over analyze; I'm sure there's meaning behind the fact that two characters are smoking, some are holding luggage, and Roger Sterling is the only one sitting down. I'm also convinced it's significant that they're flying TWA, the troubled airline that merged with American in 2001.  But this isn't LOST, and trying to theorize at this point (or any point, really, if Breaking Bad taught me anything) is a little silly. As long as I know Stan Rizzo's fringed jacket is back I'll be happy.

Mad Men returns in 19 days. By my count, that means if you haven't watched yet you only have to watch four or five episodes a day until then to get caught up. Shouldn't be a problem.

I'm Back

Dang. I certainly dropped the ball, huh? Truth is, towards the end of September work got real busy, which makes me not want to do as much at home. Then along came October, which means most of my media consumption focused on horror movies, and the TV I did watch didn’t get written about. During that time I set up a Letterboxd account to keep track of what I movies I watched. It’s pretty helpful because my memory is going south, and while I can usually remember what I’ve seen and if I liked it, I can rarely remember what I liked (or hated) about it. Anyways, because of all the movies I’ve watched, I fell behind on the TV I planned on watching.

You’ve seen my post on the first episode of Walking Dead. You could probably tell I wasn’t too impressed, and that first episode just didn’t keep me interested to stay on top of the series. I will catch up eventually. From what I’ve heard it’s getting better, so I guess I’ll catch up soon.

I’ve watched the first five episodes of Boardwalk Empire. Now that it’s out from Breaking Bad’s Sunday night shadow, it’s back on the top of my list. The fifth hour, titled “Erlkönig” was particularly great, and extremely beautifully shot. I may still do a post for that.

American Horror Story: Coven has also stepped firmly to the top of my list. It’s so creepy, pulpy, sleazy and gross, but in all the right ways. Plus the cast is pretty stunning. Jessica Lange, Angela Bassett and Kathy Bates all play great, strong, interesting characters, and watching them interact with each other is great every time. I haven’t seen the latest ep, but I may try and start with weekly writeups, especially if anyone else is watching.

The last thing I’ll say is I really miss Mad Men. Now that the story of Walter White is complete, I’m reminded how much I want to see Don Draper’s story continue. I’m pretty unhappy with AMC’s decision to split the season in two (the same way they did with the last season of Breaking Bad), but what am I going to do, not watch it? I think this article is what really got me thinking about Mad Men again. It reminds me of the good times speculating on the secrets of LOST. Anyways, I’m not sure if Mad Men is a better show than Breaking Bad, but I may find it more interesting. That’s easy to say now that Breaking Bad has wrapped up and there’s still a lot of story to tell with Mad Men, so take that statement with a grain of salt.

Watch: Orange is the New Black

I can't stop watching Netflix's new show Orange is the New Black.  I had read and heard a lot about the show -- my good friend had recommend the Moth podcast that Piper Kerman was featured on -- so I was eager to check it out.  I had also read that this might be the most diverse show that you've seen in awhile and one that features so many women.  And it is.  It's actually so refreshing to see so many different types of people and so many strong female actors.  But what I think really gets me is just seeing prison life in a day-to-day way.  Much like how I was fascinated by the West Wing because of the setting, I'm fascinated by Orange because I want to know how it all works.  The show also has a bit of the Weeds vibe (it's creator is the same), in that it leaves you with a cliffhanger type ending at the end of every episode, leaving you wanting more.

So, I'm going to go ahead and blog about a few episodes at a time (the beauty of Netflix -- you can watch the whole series at once!!).  So here's episodes 1-3.  Stop here if you want to catch up!  If you’ve watched the whole thing, please don’t comment spoilers!!  

Power Ranking!

By DB’s request, here’s my personal Top 10 list of active shows based on their recent output. It’s pretty hard to choose in any kind of order, and I feel like it’s especially hard pitting heavy hitting cinematic dramas like Breaking Bad and Mad Men against the comedies, especially something like Totally Biased or SNL, which have a much shorter turnaround time between shows. I was tempted to split it up into two lists of dramas and comedies. Instead I imagined missing a week of TV and recording every show I’m currently watching. I’m pretty sure this is the order I’d watch them in:

1. Breaking Bad
2. Mad Men
3. Game of Thrones
4. Parks and Recreation
5. Girls
6. The League
7. Veep
8. New Girl
9. Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell
10. Kroll Show
    
    

Numbers one and two are practically interchangeable. I have a feeling I rated them that way today because I just saw the season finale of Mad Men and can’t wait for Breaking Bad to start back up on August 8th.

I'm also feeling the urge to preemptively defend some of my picks, but there will be plenty of time for that in future posts, I suppose. If you’d like to call me out on anything in particular, feel free and maybe I’ll cover them first.