Mad Men - Season 1 (2007 Matthew Weiner)

In lockdown mode we decide to revisit the iconic series. Weiner had written 12 episodes of The Sopranos - he got the job by showing David Chase his spec script for this, written as far back as 1999. It was produced by AMC who had never made a dramatic series before, a big investment, you would have thought.

Great fun to see the support of smoking, drunk driving, sexism, even from women, children with cellophane on their heads, office drinking, Stepford Wife behaviour, again. Well, I say "fun". The sexism is mind-boggling and outrageous; like "Weinstein, this way forward."

Everyone looks so young. John Hamm (Don Draper), Elizabeth Moss (Peggy), Vincent Kartheiser (Pete), January Jones (Betty), Christina Hendricks (Joan), Aaron Staton (Ken Cosgrove), Rich Sommer (Harry Crane), John Slattery (Roger), Robert Morse, Bryan Batt (Salvatore). And Don's girlfriends this season: Rosemarie DeWitt (Midge) and Maggie Siff (Rachel). With Alison Brie (Pete's wife Trudy), Talia Balsam (Martin's daughter; also the real life Mrs. Slattery), Michael Gladis (Paul), Alexa Alemanni, Mark Moses ('Duck'), Julie McNiven (Hildy, Pete's sectreatry).

Vincent Kartheiser, Michael Gladis, Rich Sommer, Aaron Staton

I like the way things are gradually revealed, exemplified by the fact we don't even know Don is married with children until the end of episode one. Only gradually are revealed that Don isn't who he says he is, has brother, that Joan is sleeping with Roger. Didn't know why Peggy slept with Pete at the very beginning... The more we find out about Don, the more his behaviour is explainable.

Liked the conversation between Joan and Roger, The Apartment having come out (it's 1959/60).
Joan "Those poor girls being passed around the office like that."
Roger "An elevator operator who isn't coloured? And a woman? I want to work at that firm."

We love hating Pete - forgot he found out about Don's past so early.

Loved the moment where Betty effectively talks to Don via her psychiatrist, having found out he's reporting everything back to her husband. And when pot smoker Don (to Miles Davis) is told by beatniks he can't go outside because of the cops - "You can't" - and he walks out and the cop says "Good evening sir". And in probably the series' funniest moment, there's a punch up going on between Pete and Ken in the background, and Don and Roger totally ignore it:

"Can I drop you at the station?"

Cinematographer Steve Mason et al, production designer Dan Bishop, editor Leo Trombetta et al.

There's a lot of lying - and dramatic irony - going on throughout.