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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   2315 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 24, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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I recently binge re-watched Mad Men. Two non-spoiler thoughts:

  1. For those who haven't seen it, yes, it really is as good as people say. AMC chose it as their first original series with the brand strategy of starting with a show that would be widely recognized for its quality, even if it didn't immediately have widespread appeal. I think it's telling that the tvtropes page for anachronisms has only inconsequential examples, with many of them being arcane/minute details, things that might get fudged in contemporaneously-set fiction, or both. (E.G., one of the biggest mistakes is a character giving incorrect transit instructions: "In "Love Among the Ruins", set in 1963, Don mentions taking the New York Central and Broadway Limited from Ossining to Penn Station. At the time, Broadway Limited was run by Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR did not merge with New York Central until 1968). A commuter would not make such a mistake. Additionally, the Broadway Limited was a private all-room reserved train to Chicago, and did not allow coach passengers for intermediate stops." Close enough!)

  2. The later seasons all start with a conspicuous change in supporting characters' personal styling and set decor, but a more jarring indication of the pace of cultural change and its resulting dissonance in the second half of the 1960s are the songs chosen to play over the each episode's end credits.

I've watched seasons 1 and 2 and loved them, felt genuinely mature and novelistic in a way Breaking Bad never did for me. We watched the first episode of season 3 and liked it but got distracted and never picked it up again. Maybe we should.

Maybe we should.

You absolutely should. The rest of the series is fantastic.

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