Mad Men: The Amazing Rolling Fables?

When I'm drivin' in my car
and a man comes on the radio
he's tellin' me more and more
about some useless information
supposed to fire my imagination.

When I'm watchin' my TV
and a man comes on to tell me
how white my shirts can be.
Well he can't be a man 'cause he doesn't smoke
the same cigarettes as me.

The above is the first two versus of the opening song in this weeks episode, "Mad Men: The Summer Man." Most recognize the chorus, few know the verses from (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction, the June 1965 hit release from The Rolling Stones. That it's about advertising and about dissatisfaction certainly is appropriate to the show.

But it isn't the only material lifted from another source in this episode. We saw Faye relating the Aesop fable The North Wind and the Sun to Don:

The Wind and the Sun were disputing which was the stronger. Suddenly they saw a traveler coming down the road, and the Sun said: “I see a way to decide our dispute. Whichever of us can cause that traveler to take off his cloak shall be regarded as the stronger. You begin.”

So the Sun retired behind a cloud, and the Wind began to blow as hard as it could upon the traveler. But the harder he blew the more closely did the traveler wrap his cloak round him, till at last the Wind had to give up in despair.

Then the Sun came out and shone in all his glory upon the traveler, who soon found it too hot to walk with his cloak on.

Don asks what this means and Faye says that “kindness, gentleness, and persuasion win where force fails.”

While this had some relationship to the episode's story arcs, in my mind I juxtapose this to Don's watching with concern the Vietnam war news that American troops were taking a more aggressive strategy and we were escalating our troop presence. After an attack on a U.S. Marine barracks at Pleiku, a bombing campaign began that lasted for three years. Ho Chi Minh warned that if the Americans "want to make war for twenty years then we shall make war for twenty years. If they want to make peace, we shall make peace and invite them to afternoon tea." American policy makers chose to be the North Wind.

Dealing with post-cataract surgery glasses of that period, Miss Blankenship adds a third piece lifted from the song Amazing Grace: "I was blind but now I see." That was, of course, quite relevant in this episode as we hear Don Draper describe his process of gaining control of his life.

The "Recovering Don" story arc which picks up from the ending of the last episode was enjoyable to watch as creative TV - keeping a journal, swimming, and trying to control his drinking. I hope future episodes will continue this character.

But the more compelling "period piece" story arc is that of the women. It's now clear that we have four struggling characters that will continue. Joan and Peggy, of course. Betty. And Faye. Each is trying to cope with identity and role issues.

Betty is still struggling with a "what happened to me?" attitude and maybe she can live comfortably using Francine's suggested mantra: “We have everything.” But so far, it's not convincing.

Joan's confrontation with Joey makes it clear that she is operating out of the same rulebook his mother's generation used. In fact, he called her on it and also gave us a look into the source of his attitude which involved a disrespect of his mother. Joan began a manipulation process to get rid of him. But it didn't seem to me to be going anywhere.

Welcome to the new generation of women, Joey. Meet Peggy, bolstered by Don's "You want some respect? Go out there and get it for yourself." By the way, Joey, your fired.

Joan and Peggy. Joan is struggling with her soon to be military doctor husband, her perceptions of the workplace and women. Peggy is slowly, but surely, marching forward, one soldier in the feminist army that will ultimately find itself dominating the workplace in 2010. Except, of course, for the glass ceiling. Could Peggy ever become a Don?

Faye offered some news about her mafia family background in this episode. One can only wonder where she and Don will end up.As usual, there were many layers in this episode, and some pretty heavy psychological expressions. Whether it was Don in the waters of rebirth or Joan expression of hate attacking the macho pigs telling them death awaited their dumb asses in Vietnam, emotion pours out of this show.

Mad Men: What do a mouse and a cockroach have in common?

What do a mouse and a cockroach have in common? Answer: they both got a part in this episode of "Mad Men."

Together Peggy and Don cope with the vermin infecting their present and their pasts - you know those noxious, objectionable, or disgusting bits of reality that infect our memories, like mice and cockroaches.  In doing so, it appears Don's alcoholic binge may have bottomed out.

The show ends with Simon and Garfunkel singing Bleecker Street, an appropriate New York song with these words:

Voices leaking from a sad cafe
Smiling faces try to understand
I saw a shadow touch a shadow's hand...

During this episode Don and Peggy were

• at a cafe,
• were smiling at each other, and
• their hands touched.

"The Suitcase" may have been the best episode of "Mad Men" yet. It was certainly the best episode in the show to date for Jon Hamm and Elisabeth Moss as Don and Peggy. If next August they don't get Emmy's for their performances in this one, that means that I have some excellent TV to look forward to.

The second Ali-Liston fight was the date identifier for "The Suitcase." (The Simon and Garfunkel song The Boxer also might have been appropriate at some point in this episode. But the duo released it several years later, unfortunately for Matthew Weiner who takes sole credit for writing this episode.)

The fight also allowed us to see Don picking the wrong player, again. He was sure Nixon would win, and he was so sure Liston would win he lost money on the fight. Predicting the future isn't always his forté. But the famous Neil Leifer photo may lead to a another Clio ad for Don:

The ad is for Samsonite luggage and Don's rejection of the efforts of the creative team led by Peggy was ostensibly the cause of a fight of their own, between Don and Peggy. But separately impacting events of that evening were the true reasons for each to lash out.

For Peggy, her self-described fiancé Mark made the biggest bone-headed move a guy could make. It's her birthday. He's taking her to a fancy restaurant, the Forum of the Twelve Caesars - romantic, right? Peggy sure thinks it is. But not Mark. He decides to make it a surprise event by including her family. You know, the judgmental family from hell for a woman like Peggy who we've already seen. Only Mark doesn't know this, because he doesn't know enough about Peggy to be her fiancé.

Don, of course, doesn't remember it's Peggy's birthday which hurts her and makes her mad. So after she and her team make the presentation, when he insists she stay late to work with him on it she's really furious. She thinks Don is going to the watch the fight at a closed circuit venue, so she tells Mark she'll be a little late thinking he's waiting at the table by himself. An hour later, a humiliated Mark calls her, a fight ensues leading to a breakup.

That breakup was inevitable, but naturally it leaves Peggy extremely upset. And it's only after all of this that she finally tells Don it was her birthday.

Don also is struggling with an inevitable crisis. About five minutes into the episode Miss Blankenship says to Don walking back to his office:

"You got a call while you were in the toilet to the direct line, Stephanie from California no last name, she says it's urgent. Would you like me to place the call?

A visibly shaken Don says: "I've got it." We already learned from Episode 3 of this season that Anna would die soon. From this point in this week's episode, Don/Dick visibly struggles with the inevitable - returning the phone call to learn when Anna died. This message successfully casts a pall over the remainder of the episode, until just before the end.

The series of scenes with Don and Peggy, exchanges of anger and understanding, all lead to Don falling asleep with his head on Peggy's lap, on the office couch, perhaps after drinking his last glass of sadness for awhile, we hope.

Then there was the incredibly effective use of other characters such as:

• Don attempting to defend Peggy's honor by taking a swing at Duck, and his apparent acceptance of Peggy's involvement with Duck.
• Peggy's restroom encounter with the pregnant Trudy Campbell who chirps: “Happy birthday! You know, 26 is still very young,” which was followed by a scene of Pete Campbell with a worried look observing the two of them leaving the restroom.
• Don and Peggy listening to a tape of Roger's ramblings - Roger is writing a tell-all memoir - which includes secrets about Miss Blankenship and Burt Cooper.

Before discussing the ending, the obvious, and not so obvious, phantoms present have to be mentioned. Of course, we have the Ali-Frazer fight which was ended with what many observers called "the phantom punch." We have Anna's ghost looking in on Don. Those are the obvious ones. But we also have Peggy's baby and the dead Don Draper - the original one not Dick Whitman reborn.

Some hope for Don comes to us out of this episode. The model 1950's closed-off man broke down at the news of Anna's death with Peggy in the room. He sob's out Anna is "the only person in the world who really knew" him.

Peggy tells him that isn't true. And we know that she knows him better than anyone other than Anna. When he tentatively touched her hand, it was the hand of a true friend, and he was recognizing her value to him in a way that she needs. So much about this episode was both funny and poignant.

At the end, while leaving, at his office door, Peggy asks: "Open or closed."

"Open," Don replies, and in the final scene we see him sitting in his office from ten or more feet, through that open door, Don Draper looking sober, clean and fresh. And, as the closing music starts on this unusually high-caliber television, we're hopeful:

Fog's rollin' in off the East River bank
Like a shroud it covers Bleeker Street
Fills the alleys where men sleep
Hides the shepherd from the sheep

Voices leaking from a sad cafe
Smiling faces try to understand
I saw a shadow touch a shadow's hand....

Mad Men: What happened to Saturday, Clio?

It seems almost as if a certain synergy is involved when you know that the main story arc of this Sunday's episode of "Mad Men" is about Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce - well, really Don Draper -  receiving a Clio award.

For on Sunday night, the show won its third consecutive Emmy for Outstanding Drama Series.

(One has to note that if you don't watch much cable - particularly "Mad Men" on AMC, "Breaking Bad" on AMC, along with the usual high quality mini-series and movie offerings on HBO - you can't really know what's going on at the Emmy's. Except for "Modern Family" on ABC.)

This week, Don wins a Clio for the Glo-Coat ad, then loses the statue and the entire day of Saturday. Some bender! The drinking forces him to hire Roger's wife's cousin Danny Siegel, a guy that Roger doesn't even particularly like. Things don't seem to bode well for Don.

But, hey, we learn that it was Roger's drinking that forced him to hire Don. We learn this in a series of flashbacks - flashbacks that had a peculiar style in that there was no fade or any break of any kind indicating we are going back in time. Don's confused about time. So was I for a moment or two.

This episode focused heavily on the alcholic "foibles" of 1965 Don Draper/Dick Whitman. How did the Dick Whitman identity get in the picture again when there was nothing about the West Coast?  Apparently he identified himself to Doris as Dick. Like we viewers, Don is puzzling over who is Doris?

In fact, he begins drinking heavily on Friday before the award ceremony, makes some stupid mistakes, takes one woman home from the ceremony, wakes up Sunday to an angry phone call from his ex-wife and notices another woman in his bed - that's Doris - apparently he lost Saturday altogether.

But did he earn the award? Peggy says that adding the kid in the ad was her idea, noting that Don added the western theme with a snide comment expressing a view that it wasn't so important an idea.

In fact, we've seen the commercial and the Clint Eastwood -Spaghetti Western theme was the creative touch that made it different. I don't know that the theme will sell Glo-Coat, but it's an ad I'd probably watch once while I was skipping through commercials - if I could have skipped through commercials back then.

Nonetheless the self-involved Don/Dick didn't acknowledge Peggy's contribution or Roger's role in his career. They were both miffed.

The funniest line of the night: “I only changed one little thing.” It came from Peggy who is getting stronger as she battles her way through the sexist male legions that controlled the business community. Drunk Don orders her to work the weekend locked in a hotel room with Stan, a new art director. Stan is everything you could possibly roll up into a sexist character. And Peggy successfully challenges him where it hurts most - his one little thing. But it results in what likely will be a successful Vicks cough drop campaign and a happy client.

At a personal level, Peggy also is starting to aggressively challenge Don's fumbling and stumbling that's risking the business. We had the pathetic scene of the Life cereal people not liking the catch phrase and "celebrating Don" throwing out phrases as Pete and Peggy try to caution him. But the Life folks love the phrase “The cure for the common ... cereal."

The only problem is that phrase “The cure for the common (fill in here)" came from Roger's cousin-in-law Danny Siegel who neither Don or Peggy wanted to hire and who they dismissed with a "you'll hear from us" interview ending. When confronted by Peggy, Don doesn't even remember saying it, but complies with her demand to fix things with Danny. Danny is played by Danny Strong ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer"and "Gilmore Girls") who Don towers over. But the Danny-of-questionable-creative-talent knows when he has Don by the "short hairs." Danny gets hired.

So here we are at SCDP-creative this season. The mentor genius Don/Dick is losing it. Peggy is stepping up to keep things in order. These are two people who know each other - not yet equals, but almost family in the sense that you know which uncles have a drinking problem.

Pete was also asserting himself this week as it appears that Ken Cosgrove may be coming back to the series and into SCDP. Pete isn't going to let Ken come into the new firm until Pete's primacy as a partner is acknowledged.

As usual there is far more than one can cover, as in all episodes. But about that missing Clio. It turns out Roger picked it up for Don. And after Don apologized for not acknowledging Roger's role in his success, Roger gave it to him. I guess Roger regain a little position this week.

As I noted two episodes ago, the show could end with Don dying of lung cancer from smoking. But right now Don's career success is in jeopardy because of drinking.

It was sad when he ruminated “You finish something and you find out everyone loves it, right around the time you feel someone else did it.” On the one hand, that reinforced the idea that Don isn't acknowledging the contributions of others. But it also let's us know that Don is beginning to understand the adage: "Be careful of what you wish for."

Who is this guy? He wins the only award given in his field in the year of the startup of the firm he created. The fledgling company is surviving financially. He has everything he told Roger he wanted. Except of course, a real identity. He is the guy who needs to learn that other adage, that no one on their deathbed laments "if only I had spent more time working." Don has lost his family. Dick is losing Anna. And Don/Dick is, or should it be "are," now losing days.

Matthew Weiner's award winning creation is a traditional Greek tragedy as this all-too-American human suffering gives us entertainment. Is it "Death of a Salesman" repackaged as a TV series and updated to "the death of an ad man?"

Mad Men: The shame and the guilt

"Since when is forgiveness a better quality than loyalty?" asks Roger Sterling, the only veteran of the Pacific Theater, indeed of WWII, in the office.

Cultural psychology underlies this week's episode of "Mad Men" with the title "The Chrysanthemum and the Sword" based a on book by the same name, a 1946 study of Japan by American cultural anthropologist Ruth Benedict written at the invitation of the U.S. Office of War Information in order to understand and predict the behavior of the Japanese in World War II.

According to Benedict, shame is a violation of cultural or social values while guilt feelings arise from violations of one's internal values. Psychoanalyst Helen B. Lewis in her 1971 book Shame and guilt in neurosis explained that "The experience of shame is directly about the self, which is the focus of evaluation. In guilt, the self is not the central object of negative evaluation, but rather the thing done is the focus."

In other words, a good person can do a bad thing in secret and feel guilty about it. On the other hand, by failing to meet societal expectations one experiences the shame of being a bad person without having committed any bad acts.

"Forgiveness" versus "revenge." "Guilt" versus "shame." These differences are critical to the understanding of ourselves as a culture and ourselves as individuals.

If you watched the HBO mini-series "The Pacific" you learned just how difficult it was for soldiers from the U.S. to understand the Japanese. Simply put, in 1942 Americans were at war with a nationalistic, well-trained, initially well-equipped, war machine that had been at war more or less continuously for nearly 50 years.  Japan was a country of extremely xenophobic, culturally isolated people, dominated by a military caste and a state sponsored religion.

"Shame" at having failed was a much emphasized value and "guilt" for having harmed a person of "the others" was not even acknowledged as a possibility. But by 1965 the Japanese had effectively started the process of "rethinking" and "restructuring" their society.

Roger looked at the old men from Honda with their bowing and saw what he experienced in his Pacific war. He hadn't moved on and he suspected that these old Japanese men hadn't either. Maybe it is possible to truly move beyond "the sins of the fathers" through the changing of the guard to a new generation.

This focus on cultural differences facilitated the episode's portrayal of the effects of shame and guilt as different experiences. To do this, we get back some characters more or less missing from prior episodes this season, Betty, Sally, and Henry.

Betty, who we already know is a mess psychologically, punishes Sally for bringing shame upon her, telling her if she "touches herself" (one of those euphemisms of neurotic America) again she'd "cut off her hands." Henry sees Betty's response as damaging and Sally ends up seeing the school's psychologist four days a week. Of course, poor Sally is delivered there by Carla the housekeeper.

In one interview the psychologist, Dr. Edna, already sees Betty's problems as creating Sally's problems.  "Maytag Betty" (you remember the washing machine incident?) tells her "I was private and mostly outgrew it."

Back to Roger, who's always enough inebriated to be missing any inhibitions, almost blows the future for Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce with his hate - the big marketing future for the next 20+ years is going to become very Japanese - think Sony, as well as Honda and Toyota. But this episode allows Don to redeem himself.

The writers provide Don with a foil in the form of a competing small agency,  C.G.C., whose chief creative executive is named Ted, that has some of his former clients and is a former associate. Through deceitful manipulation Don gets Ted to buy into a need to spend too much money in the Honda competition in violation of Honda's rules, a contest which neither was ever going to win now anyway. Don wins points with Honda using ceremonious courtesy by citing the rule violation as a basis for withdrawing his firm from the contest.

As usual, there was much in this episode I'm not writing about. I do have to note that the best scene in the show was Peggy by herself riding a Honda (50?) around and around in a room to make Ted think SCDP was spending loads of money making a TV commercial. The second best scene was when Peggy was excited about the drinking bird toy.

The Big C: She gets her weird back

Cathy is ordinary - no superheroine here. She's a pretty decent Minneapolis schoolteacher. We learn without being told that she was a compliant, conscientious, deferential, personality.

In fact, it is only through Laura Linney's performance, not the words in the script, that we learn that. (And so we also learn that this is one of those shows requiring the viewer to pay attention, or you might as well flip over to watch psychically challenged people eating worms while immersed in a tank of snakes.)

As her brother says looking a bit puzzled, she's got her weird back. Now we're told something about her that only a sibling would know, so we need to be told.

"The Big C" on Showtime premiered Monday with the  network's best premiere rating in eight years and its best half-hour opener in 12 years. Premier ratings don't say much about a show, but let me state unequivocally - this show meets the high expectations created by its cast list.

The show's lead Laura Linney  - as teacher, wife, mother, and terminal melanoma victim Cathy Jamison - is one of America's best actresses working today. She is a three-time Oscar nominee, a three-time Emmy winner (most recently for her portrayal of Abigail Adams in HBO's "John Adams" miniseries), a Golden Globe three-time nominee and one time winner, a SAG best actress winner, a Tony nominee, etc. That should be enough for a half-hour dramady, but in addition we have:

•  Oliver Platt, who also has multiple award nominations (including some for his performances in "The West Wing", "Huff", and "Nip/Tuck") is the perfect choice for the hapless recently exiled husband, Paul.
• John Benjamin Hickey, a familiar face as a guest or supporting actor is the weird, but loyal, brother Sean. 
• Phyllis Somerville, another even more familiar face, is Marlene, the older, but definitely not dead, woman across the street lost to the world for years because of her husband's demise.
• The dermatologist is played by Reid Scott who we most recently know from "My Boys".
• And then there's Gabourey Sidibe, of "Precious" fame, who is "that" student.

The show's creator and writer is Darlene Hunt, another one of those people whose face you'd recognize as a supporting actress. She has a blog on the Showtime website and has multiple credits as a writer. In that blog she tells us the show is "about living the life we want to live and not wasting our precious time!" That is clear from the beginning. Cathy's Stage 4 melanoma has metastasized into bone cancer, so her available time is maybe 12 months.

It's a half-hour dramady, but much was crammed into that time. If you haven't watched the pilot, you should.  It is running all week on Showtime, available to stream on the Showtime website, and on Showtime on Demand.

Perhaps there is one caveat to my recommendation. Times occur in viewers lives when a TV show or movie just doesn't work, doesn't fit. You need to know that whenever this series ends Cathy Jamison is going to die from cancer at a relatively young age.

The humor in the show is about relationships - family, friends, etc. - generally found in how Cathy handles them. In the last scene of the pilot she's talking to Marlene's dog, while both are resting in a large hole taking up most of Cathy's back yard. It's humor, but not necessarily funny.

The last show we watched about a woman dying of cancer was "Terminal City," a superb Canadian dramatic ten-episode series shown on the Sundance Channel covering the last eight months of her life. It was time well-spent watching TV, something that cannot often be said. I believe we'll be able to say that about "The Big C."

Mad Men: Makes the smoker appear superhuman

Historical context is the elephant on the set in the opening scene of this week's episode "The Rejected." We know that Lucky Strike is the cash cow that keeps Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce in business. From this episode, we begin to see that for Don and Roger this is going to continue to be the nightmare client.

The scene began with us seeing Don, stressed, chain smoking, lighting a cigarette off the end of his last one. (Sometimes I wonder if the final scene of the final episode will be about Don dying of lung cancer.)

At one point Don describes to American Tobacco Company heir and closeted gay sadist Lee Garner, Jr., what can't be shown as: "Anything that makes the smoker appear superhuman." We know that while he's assuring about the latest regulations, ultimately TV advertising will be banned.¹

In another context scene, we see Peggy and her newfound "counterculture" friends standing outside the glass office door as Pete schmoozes in the lobby with the representatives of his new client - the entire Vicks line worth $6 million in billings. (Good work Pete, even if you had to extort it from your father-in-law!) The representatives were all men in suits, middle aged and older. Outside the glass door is the future, diverse and soon to be the target demo. We know that first the two generations must clash violently, beginning in 1965.

Peggy was well represented in this episode except for one part. I know the "ring" shots were meant to show her still evaluating traditional relationships, but it appeared like she was longing for that role as housewife. And the peeking through the window at Don was meant to show that for a woman seeking a route to a stable traditional relationships is fraught with problems, something she already learned the hard way with Pete (emphasized in this episode) and that Allison's breakdown emphasized, but it also emphasized that men have problems there too.

My problem is with the writers or the Director (sorry, John Slattery, who directed this episode). The Peggy character is too smart and too experienced to appear wistful about a ring. The one thing we know about Peggy is she knows she has the talent and skills for the job and has already chosen to become "a suit" not a hippie nor a traditional wife and mother.

Her adventure in this episode was more consistent with her character. I was anticipating that being in the Time Life building would bring her more exposure to the direction of the future. Let's hope that the character Joyce Ramsay effectively played by Zosia Mamet ("The Unit", "United States of Tara") will continue to expand Peggy's big picture view.

But what about Pete and Peggy? We know that Pete and Peggy have a history. In the sequence where Pete is coping with having just been told he'll have to "fire" the Clearasil account, in frustration he ends up banging his head against a post.

In a different sequence:

1. Peggy and Joey have an exchange over the shooting of Malcolm X which tells us (a) we're at the end of February 1965 and (b) neither one of them is very cool as Peggy is a week late learning about it and Joey gives a snotty reply.²
2. Peggy congratulates Pete on his wife being pregnant, leaving a pregnant moment between them.
3. Peggy ends up banging her head on her desk in frustration.

I'm not sure what to make of these images:

Nor do I know what to make of the second to the last scene where Peggy and Pete stare at each other through the glass door, each with their "group."

Then, of course we have the whole Fay(e) demo and Allison's breakdown.

We are shown Don's clumsy handling of Allison's request for a letter of reference. Then we have his nearly angry assertion to Faye about going with the traditional "find a husband" approach to women for Ponds: “You can’t tell how they’re going to behave based on how they have behaved.”

Don is inherently progressive in everything including women, except in his personal behavior. And even there, he knows he keeps screwing up and tries to figure out how to apologize.

Finally, there is the context reminder of the Don/Dick story arc that is offered in a haunting way.

In the beginning scene, in the middle of trying to explain things to Lee Garner, Don is obviously upset when he opens this letter from California:

In the last scene of this episode a sober(!) Don is in his apartment complex hallway with the "pear pair":

Don watches them as the old man asks the old woman repeatedly if she got the pears. She says to go into the apartment to discuss it in private.

We really can't see enough of Don's reaction to them.

But Don/Dick knows that Anna is dying of bone cancer. The picture of Anna and Dick in earlier times in the beginning scene juxtaposed with the old couple who are, after all, aware that death will come sooner than later, but who are together as a couple, a pair, has to touch a painful place in Dick/Don as a person isolated from love.

---

1. Last season we were made aware that the "Surgeon General's Report" on health effects of smoking was published. In early 1965 FTC regulations were going to require among other things the health warnings that we see now. The industry obtained delays and then got Congress to pass weakened rules in the form of the Cigarette Labeling and Advertising Act of 1965. In June 1967, the Federal Communications Commission would tighten up its rules on tobacco advertising and in April 1970, Congress passed the Public Health Cigarette Smoking Act banning the advertising of cigarettes on television and radio effective January 2, 1971.

2. There is some ironic relevance to today regarding the assassination of Malcolm X as it involved a dispute over militancy between Muslim sects. From Wikipedia:

While in prison, Malcolm X became a member of the Nation of Islam. After his parole in 1952, he became one of the Nation's leaders and chief spokesmen. For nearly a dozen years, he was the public face of the Nation of Islam. Tension between Malcolm X and Elijah Muhammad, head of the Nation of Islam, led to Malcolm X's departure from the organization in March 1964.


After leaving the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X became a Sunni Muslim and made a pilgrimage to Mecca, after which he disavowed racism. He traveled extensively throughout Africa and the Middle East. He founded Muslim Mosque, Inc., a religious organization, and the secular, Pan-Africanist, Organization of Afro-American Unity. Less than a year after he left the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X was assassinated by three members of the group while giving a speech in New York.

Mad Men: There are more Mexicans here, Anna, but you already know that.

So far this season, when I watch an episode I tend to be overwhelmed with feelings about memories. I’m never certain about the intent of Matthew Weiner and his “Mad Men” writers who have a character makes a statement relevant to today, when that statement is also very relevant to creating important historical context. We know that “Mad Men” is much about context, the place and time.

When Stephanie said to Don regarding advertising "You're kidding me. It's pollution!" I felt that it clearly reflected Betty Friedan's criticism of advertising mentioned in my post on last week’s episode. And Don’s response was reflective of the truth about the direction Americans collectively headed which got us into the economic mess are in: "So stop buying things."

The most politically charged comment of the day was Anna joking question to Don about whether there were more Mexicans here (in San Diego) or Acapulco. Assuming Anna’s perspective about what constituted a “Mexican” was typical for middle-aged "Anglo" Californians of 1964, the correct answer was “here.”

At that time Acapulco had a population of about 50,000. (It also had a huge influx of gringo tourists like Don.)

In the 1960 census in the City of San Diego there were 29,085 people born in the United States who had Spanish surnames and 22,194 people who were born in Mexico out of a population of 573,224. In San Diego County, there were 50,402 people born in the U.S. who had Spanish surnames and 37,870 people born in Mexico out of a population of 1,033,011.

I don’t know whether the writers included the comment to emphasize the difference between Anna’s 1964 California and Don’s 1964 New York, but there was a huge cultural difference beginning with history. (Alta) California was part of Mexico from 1535 to 1848 (313 years), including Mexico’s colonial period when it was known as “New Spain.” California will have been a U.S. state only 160 years on September 9 this year.

California, with its 840 mile Pacific Coast frontage, faces Asia (Japan, China, Korea, and Siberia) and Asian culture. It is part of the Pacific Rim demographically, geologically and economically. Mexico is literally “south of the border.” The California land area is 163,696 square miles and in 1960 had 15,717,204 people (96 people per square mile, approximately 50% more people than it had in 1950 and over double the population it had in 1940, and that 1960 population number would double again by 2000).

New York faces Europe across the Atlantic and is deeply tied to European culture. In the early 1600's, it was settled by the Dutch, but in 1664 it became the British Province of New York in 1664. It established its first state constitution in 1776. It does have an international border, but with Canada, specifically Ontario and Quebec, provinces that have a (partly) French heritage. The New York land area is 54,555 square miles (about one-third the size of California) and in 1960 had 16,782,304 people (307 people per square mile, about 10% more than it had in 1950 and 25% more than it had in 1940 and by that 1960 number would increase only 13% by 2000).

The point here is that California in 1964 offered a different milieu than the East Coast, including New York. The differences went much deeper than just the pop culture which would infiltrate eastward, but even that was "in our faces" in this episode.

Jan Berry and Dean Torrence, “Jan and Dean,” were both born in Los Angeles and attended University High School (the post office that serves 90210 is located within the District and Los Angeles city boundaries). In the early to mid-1960's, Berry and Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys collaborated on roughly a dozen hits and album cuts for Jan and Dean. Jan and Dean were a significant part of the California surf and auto culture music of the time. When we first see Dick (Don), Anna, and Stephanie in the bar, it is Jan and Dean we hear coming from the jukebox.

Then we see Don and Stephanie dancing to “Old Cape Cod” recorded by Patti Page, a hit in 1957, not even eight years earlier.Stephanie calls it old, Dick says it suggests a beautiful place he wishes he could go. For Dick that is meant to be a metaphor, but Stephanie takes it literally and asks him if he’s ever been there. Dick is jerked back to real life suddenly and says “no.” Nonetheless, we know that Old Cape Cod is more than a bit different from Jan and Dean’s California.

Stephanie’s UC Berkeley experience is radically different from anything Dick/Don has experienced. In September 1964, University officials announced that existing regulations prohibiting advocacy of political causes or candidates (other than invited political speakers, and fund raising and recruitment of members by authorized student organizations at the intersection of Bancroft and Telegraph Avenues) would be strictly enforced. This was one of those "Smell gas - light a match." moments that began the Free Speech Movement, a student protest which took place during the 1964–1965 academic year on the campus.

In the spring of 1965, the free speech inertia would be taken over by the Vietnam Day Committee movement and a May protest attended by Dr. Benjamin Spock. This would expand to the rest of the nation. Presumably Stephanie frequently will not be going to classes in 1965.

The Earth was moving under our feet, as it always is here in California. That's our way of life. When the Earth becomes unstable for Dick/Don, it is a major shift. Divorce and creating a new company in the same year, 1964, are change. But on the eve of 1965 learning of Anna's terminal bone cancer - well, a piece of California just fell into the ocean for Don Draper taking with it Dick Whitman.

Don knows that being surrounded by such instability can be uncomfortable. And so he signs off "Dick + Anna '64", packs up, and returns to New York instead of going to Acapulco. There he could commiserate on New Year's Day with his new-found fellow newly-single buddy Lane Price. They drink booze without bite provided by Lane's alcoholic father, then go to a campy Japanese monster movie (folks in the blogosphere are arguing over its identity) where Lane yells  pseudo Japanese to irritate irritable moviegoers, then enjoy a double-date overnight set up through Don's call girl, and then ultimately return to the offices in the Time-Life building where management is seated around a conference table (!) with Joan at the head kicking it off with: "Gentlemen, shall we begin 1965?"

Like Don, Joan's planned life is shifting under her feet. Her doctor-husband Greg is already a disappointment after failing to get the big prize at the hospital. But he's in the Army now, and she is sure he'll go to Vietnam. Maybe he'll get killed there.

Uhhhh, well, he is an doctor-officer, not some lieutenant who's going to get fragged. Just how many doctors will be killed in Vietnam? Surely there must have been one. I don't remember any and can't find any through a Google search.

But Joan doesn't know that. We learn that she, soon to be 34, is ready to start a family with Greg. She's off the pill and according to her sympathetic gynecologist, it could take at least a month before she's fertile again. No, the two abortions appear not to have caused any problems. Two? But things aren't going according to plan. She and Greg can't coordinate schedules. We are presented with a failure homemade luau, I guess as a symbol of her frustration. Greg has no appetite and Joan cuts her hand. That seems to be the only thing Greg the-possibly-soon-to-be-MASH-surgeon can fix for Joan, using a few stitches.

While this scenario would be easily believable today, what "Mad Men" is presenting is Joan as a real pioneer in the dilemma facing a career woman in the age of the pill (in 1964, an age that is barely 4, maybe, in New York City with a very sympathetic gynecologist) - how do you have it all?

But this story arc does continue the feminist theme from the last episode.

As with every episode, the layers are deep and there is too much to discuss, though I probably overthink it. The best wrong-headed quote of the night would be Stephanie's: “Nobody knows what’s wrong with themselves. Everyone else can see it right away.” If the last sentence were true, the course of history would have been substantially different.

I'm trying to figure out why this episode was named: "The Good News."

Mad Men: Norma Jeane kissing Santa Claus

This episode was a puzzle forcing me to give it some thought, particularly regarding how Don's character is being used to emphasize ... what? Finally, consideration of related American historical cultural background seemed appropriate before diving into a review of the episode.

This show is set in the heart of New York City, both in physical location and with regard to the cultural avant-garde. The second wave of the American feminist movement had reached boiling temperature. Helen Gurley Brown's Sex and the Single Girl sold 2 million copies in 3 weeks in 1962 warming the cauldron around working women. But Betty Friedan's 1963 book The Feminine Mystique ignited the fire.

Brown's book was a pop advice book on how to handle men in various situations to the single girl's advantage.

Friedan's more scholarly book challenged the basic assumptions about a woman's role in terms of family demands and housewife assumptions. Motivational research behind advertising that "manipulates" women into consumption and perpetuates a "sick or immature" society instead of one that encourages women to develop their human intelligence is one of her key criticisms of 20th Century life.

Feminism as a movement refers to a series of campaigns for reforms on issues such as reproductive rights, domestic violence, maternity leave, equal pay, voting rights, sexual harassment, and sexual violence. Voting rights were accomplished in the so-called first wave.

What most people don't really understand is that this second wave resulted in the Equal Pay Act of 1963, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a 1967 Executive Order extending full Affirmative Action rights to women, Title IX (1972), the Women's Educational Equity Act (1975), Title X (1970, health and family planning), the Equal Credit Opportunity Act (1974), the Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, the illegalization of marital rape and the legalization of no-fault divorce in all states, a 1975 law requiring the U.S. Military Academies to admit women, and many Supreme Court cases, perhaps most notably, Reed v. Reed of 1971 and Roe v. Wade of 1973.

One critical element affecting women at this time was birth control. Most don't remember that although the FDA approved the first oral contraceptive in 1960, contraceptives were not available to married women in all states until Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965 and were not available to unmarried women in all states until Eisenstadt v. Baird in 1972. Carey v. Population Services struck down a New York law forbidding distribution of contraceptives to those under 16 in 1977.

Wikipedia notes:

Many economists argue that the availability of the Birth Control Pill led to an increase in women in the labor force. Since the pill allowed women to have a sexual relationship while pursuing a career, it is given credit as one of the factors in the quiet revolution.

Remember that this season is set in 1964, before Griswold v. Connecticut in 1965 struck down a law in nearby Connecticut that prohibited the use of contraceptives. If you are under 35, you were not born when that case was decided.

To say that Peggy and Joan, along with Faye, Allison, and Phoebe, all working women, plus Betty who gave up a modeling career to become a housewife, were living in times different from today is to

1. minimize the flow of events regarding a woman's life and
2. minimize the personal stress and confusion they confronted daily.

They are working women who have to figure it out or it might kill them like it did the real fake Faye Miller in 1962 (more on this later).

There was no rule book as the women were rewriting it while many men stood around looking ... puzzled.

In some kind of ironic twist, this season's Christmas episode ends with Teresa Brewer's version of "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" with its "Jingle Bells" counterpoint. (In case you missed this version, the song someone posted on YouTube is embedded below at the bottom.)

On a positive note, other than Pete Campbell everyone (including most of the TV critics and audience) was glad to see Freddy Rumsen return. I guess one can ignore that it was sad to see the "AA" Freddy being a counterpoint to the drunken Don. So much in these first two episode is about Don Draper without his anchors - no wife and no established employer to fall back on, just his single, self-employed self, aka Dick Whitman, lest we forget. But despite Don's prominent drunken "bad" behavior, his situation and that of all the men appear to be a means to the writers' ends.

Freddy Rumsen brings an account - Pond's Cold Cream. This is hardly a product that needs a man's understanding to sell. And Peggy let's him know it, telling him he's "old fashion" and he just looks momentarily "puzzled" before continuing with an idea to use the 62-year-old Tallulah Bankhead and a bouquet of roses in an ad for Pond's. Peggy points out that she's old saying: "Nothing makes old ladies look good." Some may have thought that was kind of a mean remark, but if you're in advertising focused on the client's interest, the expanding market in 1964 was going to be the baby boomers, not their grandparents.

Peggy is at the head of the assault on rewriting the rules. She has learned the hard way and intends on figuring out how to get through the subtle complexities, including having her own controllable paramour. And Freddy, sober or not, has completely missed the signals even though he seemed more aware than some of the other men.

Which brings us back to Dr. Faye Miller, the woman psychologist carrying the torch for use of that motivational research Betty Friedan so disdained. One has to assume at least one of the writers knew the history of the name they gave this character, right?

Immediately after her divorce from Arthur Miller, Marilyn Monroe was so distraught and potentially suicidal that her psychiatrist Dr Marianne Kris drove her to New York Hospital and checked her in to a private ward on February 5, 1961, under the pseudonym of Faye Miller.

On August 5, 1962, perhaps one of the most successful working woman of her time, Marilyn Monroe, was found dead in her home. Suicide.

Not for one minute do I believe Don doesn't understand advertising psychology. His walking out to avoid dealing with the questionnaire is to avoid dealing with Dick Whitman. But he does ask Dr. Faye to dinner only to receive a rebuff and her assuring him he’ll be married in a year. When Don protests, she "apologizes" with sarcasm telling him that she forgets that people don’t like being told they’re a type.

I'm uncomfortable with the Don character as portrayed in this episode. Perhaps there are some things predictable about Don, but there was nothing trite about the character.

This brings me to that other woman in Don's life, his daughter Sally.

Sally sees in the ghost of Christmases Past her dad lurking around the house. She wants her mom to move. Maybe she can make that happen as she has that maladjusted Glen Bishop looking out for her.

Last season he had a thing for her mother. But, hey, if his newly found Betty-surrogate Sally wants to move, he can arrange to make it less desirable for the Francis family to live there while bringing a little satisfaction to Sally in the form of an untouched room. After all, Glen and Sally both have divorced/remarried mothers, another modern feminist type, the free-thinking-feminist-mother? Anyway, the Glen-and-Sally relationship has somewhere to go.

Sally does have a father. Before Christmas we have (enter trite) Secretary/Office Wife Allison reading Sally's "Dear Santa" letter to Don. You get the feeling that what Allison is reading matters to her; in fact, you get the feeling that Don matters to her. (This character - superbly played by Alexa Alemanni - has been in all three seasons and 21 episodes, so we know she knows something about Don.) Without any feeling, Don rattles off the list of stuff she should get for the kids.

Then after the Christmas Party fiasco he "sleeps" with Allison. Then he's very uncomfortable. After all he's the one who thought Roger was an idiot for marrying his secretary. Allison-the-office-wife delivers the packages, completely gift-wrapped. Don appreciates her extra services - two fifties worth. (At least he didn't have Allison slap him around.)

We get the impression in this episode that Allison has thought about becoming the next Mrs. Don Draper, but is confused. No worry, even Dr. Faye Miller is confused about Don, probably because he's really Dick Whitman deep down in that head these women find attractive.

As usual, this season's Christmas episode felt like a family Christmas with all those layers under the surface, too many to peel through here. So much was under the whole Christmas party thing with Roger being humiliated by the sadistic, closeted client Lee Garner, Jr., who bullied Sal in the editing room last season.

But it would be remiss not to note one more new woman character introduced in this episode, next door neighbor St. Vincent Hospital Nurse Phoebe (played by Nora Zehetner whose character on "Grey's Anatomy" was shot and killed at the end of last season). In contrast to Allison, she is able to handle drunk Don's attempts at "seducing" her. But she's aware of him as a person, enough to elicit from Don: "I don't hate Christmas, I hate this Christmas."

Me too, Don. So sit back and enjoy the music.

Mad Men Season Premier: Glo-Coat

"Glow" is either a noun or a verb. "Coat" is also either a noun or a verb. But when you name a product Glo-Coat you have created an modifier for the the second word.

In the case of this season's premier episode of "Mad Men," Don Draper has become a star in creative advertising because of an ad for the Johnson Wax product Glo-Coat, as if the supposed benefits of the product have made him shine. This is an apt product for underlying Don's success - "coat" which refers to a layer of anything that covers a surface that "glows" which means it is emitting bright light and heat without flame.

Even more apt is the reality that before Don's era the product had been advertised that it "Makes floors shine with practically no work," advertised as a "self-polishing transparent film", and that "more women use" it. But what we know is that it will lose its shine as from exposure to daily activity, rapidly and easily, and has to be reapplied regularly.

This episode, like every episode of this show, is built upon layers. Apparently a year has gone by. At the personal level, Don has moved to a new apartment and a regular call girl. Betty has moved on to a new marriage and we see her new mother-in-law tell her husband he's settled for nothing more than a shallow woman, a live-in call girl. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

After a brief introduction via camera shots of a shiny new new office, which simultaneously feels large enough and claustrophobic, with some new and some old staff all busy, we have bickering about the small size of the new quarters and no conference table.

The newly "Glo-Coated" Don is interviewed by a writer from Advertising Age who lost the lower part of his right leg in the Korean War, the War that allowed Don to not only skate without serious injury but to reinvent himself. Don doesn't feel comfortable blowing his own horn or discussing his invented personal history with this guy, or offer any feelings. Unfortunately for Don, this guy senses there's some missing parts in Don and writes based on his feelings, destroying a significant chance for Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce to gain within the advertising and general business community some solid "Public Relations" - the title of this episode.

Because of the article, Don takes a lot of criticism from his fellow principals of the firm and expressions of disappointment from the key subordinates. We can see that Don feels a sense of failure as he objects, noting that the success of the ad should speak for itself rather than any touting of personal success - an ironic protest that the ad - the product - shouldn't need to be sold using extraneous and false promotional advertising. But at the end of the episode, we have a repentant, energetic Don intensely reinventing his image in another interview, this time with a writer for The Wall Street Journal.

By the way, during the episode we see the ad, with its light and dark contrasts, with a "spaghetti western" feel, a film genre that began in the early '60's but came to this country in 1964 with Sergio Leone's A Fistful of Dollars starring Clint Eastwood using the dramatic music of Ennio Morricone. Only Don's adaptation involves a young boy pretending he's in jail because his mother doesn't want him to walk on the floor she's mopping which the announcer clarifies for us that "Foot prints on a wet floor are no longer a hanging offense."

At this point one has to mention that when the kids are at Don's for the night, we see them in a dark, foreboding room with bunk beds plus swinging doors that remind us of every old western bar entrance. You almost have the impression that his kids are trapped in Don's invented "spaghetti western" reality.

And we have the kids trapped in a scary parody of a Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving with a relatively rich new family that has status. Betty and Henry did get married - they were headed for Nevada at the end of last season. But Betty is already in a tension situation with Henry's mother, who clearly disapproves of her. So Betty in a peculiar fit stuffs marshmallow from the sweet potatoes into Sally's resentful mouth, the result requiring them both to leave the table. Meanwhile we have Bobby finding an opportunity to say that he likes the sweet potatoes (I think we'll see more of him coming into his own).

During this episode near the beginning we see Don meeting with his accountant who urges him to deal with "the house." What we learn is that Betty and Henry are living in the house but were supposed to have moved. We also learn in an exchange between Betty and Don that Betty is her usual petulant self, holding the house as both a sense of security for herself and a means of revenge against Don. We also learn that Henry is not happy in the house and Betty doesn't care. Henry, the flunky fix it guy for the Governor who can't directly tell his boss to do something, is also in the same position with Betty.

Which brings us to the women of "Mad Men." With the episode story arc about the Janzen swimming suit people offering a thematic reference to the 1960's battle over women openly embracing their sexuality, we are introduced to Bethany - a fix up blind date arranged by Roger and Jane (I'm otherwise ignoring Roger in this episode except to note we learn he's writing a book???).

What is she? Part of the new generation that Don doesn't understand exists? She can play as an extra the courtesan on the opera stage enjoying the costumes, but is way beyond actually being a courtesan. She's likely to be a contrast to what Don needs and uses - the call girl, a woman who represents sex to him but slaps him around? Perhaps like his relationship was with Betty, only more literal.

In the year that has transpired, Peggy has come a long way. She's the one woman that can confront Don on his weaknesses. She has no problem knowingly taking action he would not approve to better the situation with a client. She has a new art assistant - a guy. They make fun of soap operas using Stan Freberg's "John and Marsha" routine - making it clear here that "Mad Men" is not a shallow soap opera.

There's way too much to write about in this episode. This episode had the feel of being a "second pilot," introducing characters all over again, yet familiar characters. And it contained an edgy "something needs or is going to happen," but we already know that instead of it being the celebration of our all-encompassing nation in the Civil Rights Act, the something of the '60's was to be Vietnam. That hint was in Pete Campbell's "Thank you for your service" which may have been as sincere as the character can get but rang so hollow when you know what was coming.

One detail is worth noting - bringing us back to the beginning. The firm has apparently rented two green-glass windowed, column-free floors in the Time-Life Building, the first building erected in Rockefeller Center, what will become the new center of media in New York City. It is shiny-new-modern using newly-invented-structure and the talk of the town. And that is Don.

Summer Fun & The Comeback of Scripted TV

Since the Screen Writer's Guild strike in late 2007, contrary to many expectations including mine, scripted TV on cable channels and broadcast networks has made a significant comeback. This Summer's lineup - mostly cable channels - is remarkable. My own list of shows to check out is rather long and has been getting longer as premier announcements have been made:

• 3-Jun - USA - Burn Notice Season Premier
• 3-Jun - USA - Royal Pains Season Premier
• 4-Jun - CBS - Flashpoint Season Premier
• 5-Jun - CBS - Three Rivers Canceled Series remaining episodes
• 6-Jun - Lifetime - Drop Dead Diva Season Premier
• 7-Jun - ABCFamily - The Secret Life of The American Teenager Season Premier
• 7-Jun - FOX - Lie To Me Season Premier
• 7-Jun - FOX - The Good Guys Series Premier
• 7-Jun - NBC - Persons Unknown Series Premier
• 8-Jun - ABCFamily - Pretty Little Liars Series Premier
• 13-Jun - HBO - True Blood Season Premier
• 13-Jun - Toon - Unnatural History Series Premier
• 16-Jun - TVland - Hot in Cleveland Series Premier
• 20-Jun - ABC - The Gates Series Premier
• 20-Jun - ABC - Scoundrels Series Premier
• 20-Jun - TNT - Leverage Season Premier
• 22-Jun - TNT - Hawthorne Season Premier
• 22-Jun - TNT - Memphis Beat Series Premier
• 24-Jun - ABC - Rookie Blue Series Premier
• 28-Jun - ABCFamily - Huge Series Premier
• 28-Jun - ABCFamily - Make It or Break It Season Premier
• 29-Jun - FX - Rescue Me Season Premier
• 29-Jun - FX - Louie Series Premier
• 9-Jul - Syfy - Eureka Season Premier
• 9-Jul - Syfy - Haven Season Premier
• 10-Jul - CBS - The Bridge Series Premier
• 12-Jul - TNT - The Closer Season Premier
• 12-Jul - TNT - Rizzoli & Isles Series Premier
• 13-Jul - A&E - The Glades Series Premier
• 13-Jul - Syfy - Warehouse 13 Season Premier
• 13-Jul - USA - White Collar Season Premier
• 13-Jul - USA - Covert Affairs Series Premier
• 21-Jul - USA - Psych Series Premier
• 25-Jul - AMC - Mad Men Season Premier
• 25-Jul - HBO - Hung Season Premier
• 25-Jul - TBS - My Boys Premier
• 1-Aug - AMC - Rubicon Series Premier
• 4-Aug - TNT - Dark Blue Season Premier
• 16-Aug - Showtime - Weeds Season Premier
• 16-Aug - Showtime - The Big C Premier
• 17-Aug - ABCFamily - Melissa & Joey Series Premier

Not that I expect all of these to be quality shows. But it is a long list.

And then there's this coming Fall broadcast networks' schedules which present conflict problems even when one has the ability to record four shows simultaneously:

Sunday

• ABC - Desperate Housewives
• ABC - Brothers & Sisters
• CBS - CSI Miami

Monday

• ABC - Castle
• CBS - How I Met Your Mother
• CBS - Rules of Engagement
• CBS - Two and a Half Men
• CBS - Mike & Molly
• CBS - Hawaii Five-O
• FOX - House
• FOX - Lonestar
• NBC - Chuck
• NBC - The Event
• NBC - Chase

Tuesday

• ABC - No Ordinary Family
• ABC - Detroit 187
• CBS - NCIS
• CBS - NCIS: Los Angeles
• CBS - The Good Wife
• FOX - Glee
• FOX - Raising Hope
• FOX - Running Wilde
• NBC - Parenthood
• CW - Life Unexpected

Wednesday

• ABC - The Middle
• ABC - Better Together
• ABC - Modern Family
• ABC - Cougar Town
• ABC - The Whole Truth
• CBS - Criminal Minds
• CBS - The Defenders
• FOX - Lie to Me
• NBC - Undercovers
• NBC - Law & Order: SVU
• NBC - Law & Order: Los Angeles

Thursday

• ABC - My Generation
• ABC - Grey's Anatomy
• ABC - Private Practice
• CBS - The Big Bang Theory
• CBS - $#*! My Dad Says
• CBS - CSI
• CBS - The Mentalist
• FOX - Bones
• FOX - Fringe
• NBC - Community
• NBC - Love Bites
• CW - Nikita

Friday

• ABC - Body of Proof
• CBS - Medium
• CBS - CSI New York
• CBS - Blue Bloods
• FOX - Human Target
• FOX - The Good Guys
• NBC - Outlaw

Obviously, many of these shows aren't going to make it because the "Live" viewing audience can only view one at any time.

Regarding scripted TV, all the fears in 2007 seem to have been wasted. To paraphrase Mark Twain, the reports of the imminent death of scripted TV were greatly exaggerated.

Gravity - a Starz solid heavy weight

I subscribe to HBO, Showtime and Starz these days not for the movies, which is a nice benefit, but for original programming. And there is a lot on these channels.

A number of 30 minute "sitcoms" are offered by these channels, many offbeat and/or dry. Despite the representation, a few aren't "sitcoms" or even could be called a "dramady" - think "Nurse Jackie" which has some dry, witty moments just like AMC's hour long "Breaking Bad" but neither is any kind of comedy as compared to "Weeds" on Showtime which even in Nancy's worst moments can somehow be wryly amusing in the sense one sees a cartoon situation with a "what a revolting development this is" aura.

Friday, Starz introduced "Gravity" following the season return of its amusing comedy about caterers, "Party Down."

"Gravity" is not a comedy. It is about a group of suicide survivors who collide in an out-patient program. I suppose if the script was about some zany crazies who attempted suicide, well maybe. It is a 30-minute-per-episode drama series with some dry, witty moments. And it probably will be very good - except the 30 minute format may be a bit constraining.

Yes, there is something amusing about the initial few minutes in which Robert Collinsworth (played by Ivan Sergei pictured above), an ophthalmologist who can't get over his wife's death from cancer, drives his Mercedes over a cliff directly into the swimming pool of a passing gay cruise ship. He thereby gets his 15 seconds of fame as a joke on YouTube known as "the suicide dummy."

But your own psyche knows this is not comedy.

Nor is the suicide attempt by Lilly Champagn played by Krysten Ritter (pictured above). Lilly attempts suicide by chasing a bottle of pills with a rich slice of chocolate cake she makes from a box mix, many boxes of which she has in cupboard. An atheist, she falls for a dirtbag she has never met who she sees in heaven after flat-lining at the hospital.

Attempting suicide is a crime. Entering from left field comes Detective Christian Miller (Co-creator Eric Schaeffer pictured below) a vegan/gambler/yoga obsessed and weird cop.

Robert and Lily must join a support group run by a former baseball player named Dogg (Ving Rhames pictured below) who's now in a wheelchair.

Eying each other, knowing some or all will try suicide again, this group (including a number of other strong actors) will struggle. Is there a dark sense of humor? Yes. But when Dogg takes them for a "field trip" on a short notice, whatever chance there was to call this a sitcom fades suddenly.

Fortunately if you are not a Starz subscriber, you can watch episodes 1 and 2 online now. I'd recommend watching both to get a feel for the show.

The Leno gamble - what's really at risk

This week's TIME magazine has Jay Leno on the cover and describes "Jay Leno is the Future of Television" in its headline. The portion of the article that is not directly about Jay Leno is devoted to the same discussion offered here in November of 2007 in the series of posts headed The Screen Writers Guild strike, technology, and the future of scripted television.

Near the end of the article is the following paragraph:

Maybe the fact that NBC is, essentially, doing what cable channels do (that is, reducing costs and targeting its scripted shows) is a harbinger of the day when it, or another big network, will literally become a cable channel, trading the system of local affiliates for the freedom and licensing fees of cable.

That is the backhanded recognition of what NBC is putting at risk. As I wrote in April NBCU has no intention of serving the interest of NBC affiliates. The Washington Post's TV columnist Lisa de Moraes observed this week quite correctly:

NBC is now playing a different game, with new rules. That game is called Programming to Margins. NBC suits think they can win by slashing costs to rack up points with shareholders and thus declare a new form of victory in which you can win even if you haven't had a bona fide hit in years.

NBC suits know Leno's new comedy show won't attract as many viewers as the scripted dramas the other networks have scheduled at 10 p.m. weekdays: "CSI: Miami," "Private Practice," "The Mentalist," etc. They concede that this means advertisers will not pay as much for ad time on Leno's show as they will for ad time in those scripted series. The execs believe they have guaranteed their own success if only because Leno's show will cost so much less to produce. Leno recently bragged to a gathering of reporters that he can make a whole week's worth of "The Jay Leno Show" for the price of one episode of "CSI: Miami."

GE management which includes NBC management has created lowered expectations, particularly among shareholders. If the profit line on the NBCU division known as NBC rises for two quarters because of the decision about Leno, GE management has succeeded. That doesn't mean that the Leno Show has succeeded as entertainment.

Over the next three years, the network broadcast TV station properties will shift to meet the ratings as the NBC-owned New York station already has by reducing news and creating locally marketable local oriented programming. If anything, they are focusing on creating a record of delivering live-eyes on ads.

NBC owns broadcast stations in the following eight (out of 210) DMA's (designated market area) representing 25% of the nation's "TV homes":

1. New York City
2. Los Angeles
3. Chicago
4. Philadelphia
5. Dallas/Fort Worth
6. San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose
9. Washington, D.C./Hagerstown, MD
16. Miami/Ft. Lauderdale

But those large-population DMA stations aren't affiliates, they're owned - they have the resources of NBCU and GE plus large numbers of viewers within the DMA. In the remaining 202 DMA's representing 75% of "TV homes" somebody else owns the NBC affiliate stations. Consider the situation of the affiliates in the following DMA's:

107. Ft. Wayne
108. Reno
109. Youngstown
110. Tyler-Longview
111. Springfield-Holyoke
112. Boise
113. Sioux Falls(Mitchell)
114. Lansing

In these much smaller population DMA's, even if they captured the entire 5 pm - 6 pm viewers available, the affiliate cannot deliver anything resembling the number of eyes the NBC property in New York City can guarantee to advertisers as a minimum for that time slot where they've put new locally created programming. Nor are there the number of local businesses from which to solicit ads. So those affiliates aren't going to have the flexibility to deal effectively with the loss of advertising income from their 10 pm network show and from their 11:00 pm news show and maybe even from their 11:35 pm NBC late night show.

Five years from now these small DMA affiliate stations may be sorry they kept their NBC affiliation instead of embracing the NBC "Programming to Margins" business model as their own.

That model suggests that the smaller DMA stations may want to drop their expensive NBC affiliation in favor of a syndicated and local programming schedule costing 20% of their network affiliation, which would allow them to retain 100% of whatever advertising revenue they can generate.

Losing up to 50% of the "TV homes" is the long term risk NBC is taking by changing it's model from that maintained by CBS and ABC to a new model. It is not even that model of 10-11 pm local programming used by Fox which benefits the affiliates.

And if NBC longs to become a cable channel as TIME speculates, what will it do with its owned local stations? Those stations derive much of their current value from NBC programming. Without it, the value of these assets would plunge.

In the short term, NBC's Leno move may work for NBC within the GE corporate style. But it may not work for the affiliate stations. And realistically, if it doesn't work for the affiliates, it won't work for the NBC-owned stations. Sure NBC could become a cable channel but that won't help with the loss of asset value and the loss of goodwill in the broadcast industry.

Unlike the manufacturing properties owned by GE, maximizing quarterly profit margins within a 24-month or less window can't guarantee retaining the value of NBC over the five-year period. Sometimes accepting less profit for four years is a better five-year long-term strategy. It most certainly would have been for GE's banking properties and it's there that GE needs to look for helpful management cues for NBC, not in its aircraft engine division.

Broadcast station retransmission fees - Congress needs to step in

Nowadays, network executives are as likely to be plotting to extract “retransmission consent” fees from cable operators as they are to be gathering around their magnetic scheduling boards and shifting shows from slot to slot. - from "Don't Touch That Dial", a 2006 book review by Tad Friend in the New Yorker

The time has come for Congress to deal with the absurdity of the retransmission fee issue for broadcast network TV.

The problem is simple. Local broadcast TV stations owners want a significant source of non-advertising revenue as their commitment to producing local programming, including local news, ceases. The national broadcast network executives, whose programming is carried on those stations, also appear to want a significant source of non-advertising revenue. Both have determined that the source will be "retransmission fees."

When Congress originally established licensing for local TV stations it was to benefit the public. Now that the stations have gone digital as required by Congress, each one of those stations has been given at no extra licensing competition cost the potential to broadcast two to four discrete signals known as subchannels. Those licenses are for broadcasting signals that are free to anyone who has a tuner within the stations Designated Marketing Area (DMA) in return for the right to broadcast owned content exclusively, including national network content for those affiliated with such networks.

The problem is that "free" has been interpreted as meaning, "well, not really free for most of the people watching the station." You see, most of us watch TV via cable or satellite and the stations and the networks have already started seeking significant per-customer fees from the cable and satellite carriers. Ultimately, that fee is passed on to the viewer.

Now I have no problem with ABC, CBS, Fox, MyNetworkTV, NBC, PBS, and The CW charging carriers for their program as does TNT or The Discovery Channel. Just so long as the "must carry" rule requiring cable and satellite carriers to carry local channels is eliminated and the national broadcast networks provide a direct signal for all their programming to the carriers like TNT and The Discovery Channel do - no middleman such as a local station.

For satellite carriers particularly, the cost of bandwidth to carry all those broadcast network stations is very expensive. If they could provide broadcast network programming to all their customers, perhaps with an East and West feed like many of the cable channels, without paying fees to local stations then the issue of whether local stations constitute a local public service could finally be acknowledged honestly. Two in each DMA could be carried for the local emergency broadcast system, two for redundancy. And the ones that have the most to offer viewers would likely be carried because of viewer demand. The rest could go bankrupt if they can't attract off-the-air viewers which they should. Just how many stations offering reruns of "Friends" do people really need?

Why bring this up now? It appears from a MediaPost article by Wayne Friedman on Friday that the networks are starting to sniff around retransmission fees again stating:

If you were to ask broadcast executives where the big new stream of revenue will come from in the coming years, you might guess wrong.

Digital ad revenue? Subscription fees from new online services? Video on demand? One senior broadcast TV executive told me plainly: "It is retransmission fees, pure and simple."

Since the networks don't provide the signal, exactly what are they looking for? Why should we TV signal carrier customers pay the networks and also pay the local stations whose signal we should be getting for free?

There is an inherent anti-public-interest attitude in all this. It's time for Congress to explain to the networks that they can depend on "off the air" federally licensed local stations or they can depend on cable/satellite carriers for revenue. But only one fee source is going to be allowed.

NBCU solidifies its TV structure - Silverman out, finally

As I noted in April in March at the Media Summit conference Zucker said: "We are, first and foremost, a cable network company." Today it was announced that Zucker put NBC under the control of of his cable operations boss.

You can read this from many sources but The Hollywood Reporter broke it up into two articles. First we have from Ben Silverman out at NBC Universal:

Quote:

After a rocky two-year tenure, Ben Silverman stepped down Monday as co-chairman of NBC Entertainment and Universal Media Studios to launch a company with Internet mogul Barry Diller. NBC Universal is consolidating all of its TV entertainment operations under company veteran Jeff Gaspin, who has been named chairman of the combined new division, NBC Universal Television Entertainment. The move gives Gaspin oversight of NBC and UMS, with Marc Graboff -- who ran the units with Silverman -- now reporting to him.

"A rocky two-year tenure" is a generous description of what's happened to NBC in the past two years.

From Jeff Gaspin is a change of pace: New NBC Uni TV chief brings buttoned-down efficiency:

Quote:

With the surprise selection of Jeff Gaspin to add oversight of NBC Universal's broadcast business to the cable division, CEO Jeff Zucker is elevating an executive who might be the antithesis of outgoing programming chief Ben Silverman. If Silverman is the brash showman with little to show off, the buttoned-down Gaspin prefers to let the revenue generated by NBC Uni's booming cable business speak for itself. In the second quarter recently reported by General Electric, Gaspin's cable division defied the downward trend dragging down NBC Uni by posting a 7% year-over-year increase in operating profit compared with 2008, to $595 million.

"Surprise selection?" Only in Hollywood would someone think that making money in an economic downturn is a surprising criteria to use to pick someone to replace a loser. While President/CEO of NBC Universal Jeff Zucker has supported Silverman's cost cutting, profit-centered moves such as vertical integration, from MediaPost here's his comment about putting Gaspin in charge:

Quote:

"Jeff Gaspin is an extraordinary media professional who has had an incredible record of success in his 25 years in the business. He's a strong creative executive who also has the business acumen necessary to succeed in today's media environment. This new structure helps us align all of our television entertainment assets under one veteran executive at a time when continued innovation is essential."

The big question is: "Can Gaspin bail out NBC?" Will he continue the network's slow march to become become only or mostly news, sports, and televaudeville as I predicted in November 2007? Or will he ultimately solidify the two-hour prime-time model that is the standard on cable, leaving the 10:00 pm slot to "Leno" or if that doesn't work to the locals?

It's been my opinion for some time now that Zucker's NBCU is the future of TV meaning:

• A variety of cable channels under one roof as NBCU cable channels include, among others, Bravo, Universal HD, Chiller, CNBC, MSNBC, Syfy (formerly SciFi), Telemundo, Sleuth, and USA. NBCU is 25% owner of the A&E television networks which includes, among others, the cable channels A&E, History Channel, and the Biography Channel.
• A strong web presence in the form of Hulu and each channel's own web site.
• A broadcast network structure that places a greater burden on the local broadcast station in the hinterlands to find programming while the NBC owned large market broadcast stations produce and sell to local advertisers local-interest programming.

Regarding the competition, it appears that CBS will focus on retaining its top position in the broadcast network business with the most viewers.

News Corp with Fox focused on the two hour primetime will now compete with NBC and The CW for that "18-49 demo" which is a declining audience. And News Corp was a co-founder of Hulu and has a prime time cable presence with FX. It's as if these two competitors are focused on the same model.

Disney with ABC, still in the three hour primetime model, will compete with CBS for total viewers though one has to wonder if they are dividing their audience into some kind of family model - Disney Channel viewers (kids, mostly), ABC Family (pre-teens and teens, mostly which competes with The CW), and ABC (family oriented adults). Disney does have a strong online presence.

"Torchwood: Children of Earth" - a modern morality tale

"That's what Torchwood does, you see: it ruins your life," Gwen Cooper emphatically states towards the end of "Torchwood: Children of Earth" and indeed the story line is that disturbing. In fact, it should be regarded as a politically charged, not very subtle anti-establishment piece. But first, a momentary side discussion.

"We've got great reaction from viewers on our HD service," channel publicity VP Amy Mulcair said on the second day of the highly promoted HD introduction week. "Everyone's very keen to see it and we're very keen for them to see it. And we're glad to say there are a number of deals that will be announced imminently."

"Imminently" isn't in time for the much ballyhooed launch featuring "Torchwood: Children of Earth" which, along with the other scifi programming this week, was not carried in HD on a single cable or satellite system.

But not having "Torchwood: Children of Earth" in HD did not keep the miniseries from being one of the best shows offered by any channel this Summer. Picking up from its moderately successful second season which ended with the death of two of the five principal characters, it was the number one show for five nights running in the UK with the first episode of the third series was watched by 5.9 million viewers and the last by 5.8 million - the average audience for series two ranged between 2.5 and 4.2 million. It will be interesting to see if BBCA pulled in over 3 million.

Fans of the series at once are crushed by the death of the popular character Ianto and the dark turn taken by the primary "Dr. Who" type character Captain Jack Harkness in, as noted above, an unusually dark story line.

For me the crux of the story relates to the belief by an alien species that humans are, in fact and with a great deal of irony, "inhuman" meaning "lacking qualities of sympathy, pity, warmth, compassion, or the like; cruel; brutal" particularly in regard to our own species. The aliens, called 456, want 10% of the Earth's children. When an objection is raised by Captain Jack the 456 response is “but you’re letting children die every day; why would you mind this?” They offer statistics we all know but don't care about. Over 25,000 children die every day around the world. That is equivalent to:

• 1 child dying every 3.5 seconds
• 17-18 children dying every minute
• Over 9 million children dying every year
• Some 70 million children dying between 2000 and 2007

Our children (the alien assumes "our" because we are a single species) die of hunger, easily preventable diseases and illnesses, and other poverty related causes. In spite of the scale of this ongoing catastrophe, humanity does nothing to solve a problem that could be solved.

Given this inhuman nature of our species, an alien species that appears to be able to kill us all, merely wants 10% of our children. We are presented a meeting of elected and appointed officials discussing criteria for selecting children based on their desirability, which concluded as such a meeting would that most would be chosen from the poor all for the good of society as a whole.

This shouldn't be too disturbing because the Nazi's in fact did hold the Wannsee Conference to establish criteria for the processes of the "final solution" and in fact most of the foot soldiers in most armies around the world who are sent to kill and die for the good of their nation are mostly the poor.

It would seem so logical to an alien observing humanity over time that we could select 10% of our children to give to aliens for the good of the remainder of humanity. Day in and day out as a species the richest societies buy iPods while far more than 10% of human young die from preventable causes.

In Britain the one frequent fan criticism of the show is that somehow the writers were trying to write a Shakespearean tragedy. Personally, I thought it was more akin to the tragedies of the ancient Greek myths. But regardless, it was a story of that level.

Yes, like all such TV scifi presentations to a degree you have to suspend disbelief (what, unlike everything else on TV???). And yes, you can always find something that has been done before with similarities, even as far back an ancient Greek myths.

But like those myths, it was a modern morality tale with it's flawed hero. Well done!

"Mental" on Fox - Tight Writing, Good Storyline, Good Cast. What's Not to Like?

I was surprised, no shocked, that I liked this show because almost every critic (with few exceptions) gave a big thumbs down. Based on those reviews, I expected it to be "House lite". As far as I'm concerned, nothing could be further from the truth.

Yes, it's on Fox. So is "Dollhouse" and it even has "house" in its name, but it's not "House." Yes, the star of "Mental" is a Brit. But he doesn't hide his accent. Maybe that should have been the first clue to considering the show on its own merits.

Here's the plot summary of the pilot:

Dr. Jack Gallagher (Chris Vance, "Prison Break" 2007-8 season), Psychiatrist, spends his first day as Director of Psychiatric Services at Los Angeles' Wharton Memorial Hospital trying to win over his colleagues and his boss Nora Skoff (Annabella Sciorra).

Because he's a psychiatrist he's a doctor, but like House? Marcus Welby, MD was a doctor. He wasn't like House. And neither is the principle character in "Mental".

Dr. Jack Gallagher first appears in the show in the Hospital Lobby where everyone else is waiting for some cops to take down a patient in a psychotic break with schizophrenia, played by Silas Weir Mitchell who plays psychotic so well, and who has taken off his clothes to prove he's a human to everyone else who he sees as non-human reptilians. After observing for a few seconds, Gallagher strips and tells him he's human too.

So he's relating sympathetically to patients. He's trying to win over his colleagues. That's definitely not Gregory House, M.D.

It is about psychiatry and psychotic patients (not neurotic people). It's tightly written and has some potentially interesting characters. It should be a stimulating show. If the first episode is any indication it will provide a serious look at mental illness and treatment options. It's not House but it could be just as interesting. It's weekly subjects likely will have more in common with the "ER" episodes with the Sally Field character who is bipolar.

It's a Summer show so it probably won't be canceled after the third episode. If it might appeal to you, give it shot.

Hulu.com - Now Home of the Big 3

In the original six part series posted here November 12, 2007, the importance of the birth of Hulu.com parented by NBCU and Fox was described. Also noted in that series was the following:

Disney (ABC) CEO Bob Iger was called upon to defend the company's narrow online video distribution at a recent corporate event. After doing a song and dance defense, he described it as an interesting debate, explaining that the original idea of amassing most of the video on ABC.com was to promote the shows, use the site to upsell and "it also became a pretty good platform for advertisers."

He added: "We're going to take a pretty expansive view. .. We're going to be on more places than iTunes, ABC.com and AOL."

This week we've learned that Disney/ABC has become a partner in Hulu.com. I'm hoping this current HULU business model of free access with advertising support works out. But no one should be under no illusion that the free access model is the long term plan.

(For discussion purposes below, my use of the ubiquitous "they" means the large media, cable, and media+cable conglomerates. And I don't mean to imply a "conspiracy against the viewing public" but more a "joint effort to find a corporate economic model in which the existing few can thrive.")

The current HULU system isn't the model under discussion as the long term plan in the media, cable and advertising industry trade press. Apparently the cable companies want access to current programming on media company sites restricted to cable and satellite TV subscribers with some sort of "restricted membership access" model.

They would prefer an IPTV model using Tru2way enabled boxes. The ideal in their mind would be to allow access to "current program" streaming based on your package, so if your cable/satellite package doesn't give you access to the FX channel you can't stream an FX program shown in the past two years.

But they appear to have decided to settle for:

1. access restricted to "cable channel" subscribers through any cable or satellite system; and
2. allowing a PPV internet streaming system while offering "a better way" using set top boxes that recognize the viewer's programming package.

The media companies are sympathetic to the cable companies because at this point the advertising revenue doesn't support the basic on line operation of a site like Hulu.com, much less provide a revenue stream to help pay for the programming and generate a profit.

They envision some type of PPV revenue model for "current TV" and "newer movie" content based on streaming activities, such as 29¢ per episode stream or $1.59 per movie stream with limited advertising, perhaps offering an ad free alternative for an extra $1 per stream or annual subscription.

Content is being aggregated through the media-company-jointly-owned Hulu.com for three of the four major TV broadcast networks, their sister cable channels, and their sister media production and distribution companies (which represents a huge chunk of the media industry). CBS bought TV.com and is restructuring it to accomplish the same purpose as Hulu where, I would guess, we'll see CBS and Viacom content offered, ultimately maybe with Time-Warner and/or Sony.

I have to credit both NBCU (GE) and Fox (News Corp) for moving rapidly to creat an effective web site and experimenting with different outlet approaches. They're in a position to adapt to the economic needs of the cable/telcom-TV/ISP giants, while cleverly threading their way through the regulatory minefield. They haven't tripped and probably will avoid tripping any FCC/SEC/Justice Department mines by licensing content to Apple (which already has a fee structure), the new Google-owned YouTube media site, and Amazon's streaming system as well as the cable-owned web sites like Fancast.

In 2011 as the economic model becomes clearer, they'll make concessions to labor on residuals from internet content revenues. They don't want a protracted labor dispute which could raise antitrust issues.

The ultimate goal is to end up with as few originating sources for PPV video streaming as possible for media-conglomerate-owned content. Then, they'll launch a major attack on the video file-sharing pirates. Beginning in 2012, BitTorrent users may find themselves in a seriously troubling environment.