Mad Men

I've watched so much TV, I pretty much know what's going to happen on a TV show after seeing the first five minutes. I finish sentences for TV characters, to the amusement of my husband. That's why I really like Mad Men -- it trips me up. The writer has watched as much TV as I have, but instead of copying templates, he uses all the decades of film and TV in the way our brains use memory to create a separate, distinct universe. I like the way Mad Men is more like a film, in color and atmosphere, tone and conversation. I like the way it incorporates the Rock Hudson/Doris Day movies, with punches of Jack Lemmon and Billy Wilder. It's our historic romantic ideas of the fifties and early sixties, post Sex and the City, Six Foot Under, Sopranos, Blade Runner. And I loved the first episode punch line: he's married, viewers. Melancholy and poignancy equal hopeful anticipation.