I've spend the last few evenings watching Don Draper seduce every lady around him with a look, and then majestically flaming out with his old tricks three seasons later. Of course, ladies love cool Don so he still succeeds more often than he fails. It's just shocking when he's rejected. Like really? Who would pass up getting with Don Draper?
Draper represents a lot of things I hate about guys in real life: uncommunicative, repressed, sullen, married to his work, misogynist, an unfettered womanizer. But he's also like this really great man who sticks by his personal code of honor, possesses unshakeable presence, and is ambitious and amazing at his job. Plus he always knows how to say just the right thing when he needs it. No question about it, Don Draper is a man to be looked up to. "What Would Don Draper Do?"
Re-watching Mad Men is bringing me to last year around this time, when I undertook a similar Draper frenzy. I think we were whipping through Season Two then, in anticipation of Season Four. What that means, literally and symbolically, is that I'm back where I began. I think I'm giving up on 2011 in anticipation of a 2012 that really can't come soon enough. It's only mid-October but I think I'm in year end mode already. I bought a ticket a few hours ago, any guesses on where?
I'm sure you've heard but there's a spate of female-centric comedies debuting on TV recently. I felt like I had to check them out in support of women creators in television and such. Of the three, Zooey Deschanel and her New Girl is the easy winner. It's not amazing but there can be no doubt, Zooey is "adorkable" and irresistible. Actually the real appeal of the show so far has been the douchebag character, played by Max Greenfield. Again, someone I would avoid in real life but great on-screen.
The bad news is that 2 Broke Girls is very unfunny despite leads I like. And Whitney is even worse. The brain behind the two latter shows is comedian Whitney Cummings, who should be applauded for having her babies picked up for full season runs but I'm wondering why they both suck. I can't get over the grating laugh tracks. One of the Internet people I follow, Molls, is a writer for 2 Broke Girls and she's hilarious but I can't find any traces of her humor in any of the episodes.
Back in San Francisco, before I left for the drive, we had started watching the first season of The Cosby Show on Netflix. The writing was so good, the laughs still so relevant and timely, that I wondered what kind of staff was responsible for doing the show. How many black writers were behind the scenes? How many women? How old was the staff and what was their previous experience? What would it take to create a sitcom like that today? Here's a 1984 article, "Cosby Puts His Stamp on a TV Hit," that sheds a bit of insight.
When is anything good and nuanced going to appear on television about young people -- in a drama or sitcom format? Or did that already happen and I missed it? Was it Friends? Oh wait I said "nuanced."
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