Mad Men - five series down, two to go. Instead of
reviewing storylines, we thought it was probably easier to see how each of the characters
had developed over the course of this series.
Don - As the lynchpin of the show Don has had a good series.
Free from Betty, he's been reasonably happy with - aka faithful to - Megan, and it's all been
pretty much believable. The only negatives are the occasional visions, which seem to be out of sync with the more-or-less natural tone of the rest of the show.
Less of those please!
Roger - Also a good series. As a functioning alcoholic (with
seemingly everlasting finances) we can buy him experimenting with LSD and realising his latest marriage was a leap in the dark that hasn't worked out.
Bert - Bert hasn't appeared much, but he's also been true to his
character. He told Don to 'get back to work' after lots of Megan distractions,
and in fact he'd have done that earlier.
Lane - The series has a habit of making the male characters sleazy
if it doesn't know what to do with them. (See below!) This series we got Sleazy
Lane at the beginning, but then better storylines developed. Halfway
through we felt sorry for Jared Harris, arguably the best actor in the show,
getting such a poor deal, but he had some great scenes later on. RIP.
Pete - Sleazy Pete! Pete is a great character, and very believable
as a young, thrusting ad man, but the show doesn't really know what do
do with him outside work. Hence Sleazy Pete.
Peggy - Finally she got another job. As with Pete, they
really don't know what to do with Peggy outside (& maybe inside) the office. Ali has had a gripe with this since MM began. Why should the nominally go-ahead character have such uninspiring stories? Because most of the writers are male and don't know what to do with her, or understand her? Could Peggy either go or have some kind of proper, full series story arc?
Megan - It (kind of) came good in the end, but Megan has the
potential to turn into another Betty dramatically, in that she'll drag the show
down whenever she appears.
Joan - We wondered midway through, but Joan ended up with the sort of
full series story arc that Peggy needs. She also arguably had the
best single episode story too (the pitch) and we'd put money on her becoming
an even more important character in the remaining series.
Fabulous cast, strong and intelligent writing. Bring on Series 6!
