MattWeiner-related stories
Posted Nov 22nd 2009 4:03PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Other Comedy Shows, Programming, OpEd, The Closer, Friday Night Lights, Breaking Bad, Reality-Free, Mad Men, Burn Notice, Glee
Thanksgiving is coming and for many of us it's time to eat, drink and watch football. It's also a time to reflect on the things you're grateful for and since TV Squad is all about television, here's what I'm grateful for this holiday season, with regard to the tube.
Mad Men season finale
There was really nothing as satisfying in the entire year for me. Matt Weiner promised a game-changing episode and he delivered it with a whopper of a wrap up. Actually, nothing was really wrapped; it was more like the cards have been dealt and we're still waiting to see how the hands are played.
Continue reading What Allison is thankful for
Posted Nov 11th 2009 9:30PM by Danny Gallagher
Filed under: Reality-Free, Mad Men
Are you a fan of
Mad Men? Are you a fan of
X-Men? Have you been hoping that Matt Weiner and Stan Lee would somehow meet up at an exclusive Hollywood party and eventually create a series that combines your two favorite television franchises?
If so, please get out of your house more.
And that hasn't exactly happened but the funny folks at
Madatoms have done that for you with their new line of
Mad Men/X-Men mash-ups. The shows are actually eerily similar when you think about it. Both of them feature ruthless characters who will stop at nothing for ultimate power. Both deal with the changing intolerance of their respective ages. The only thing missing are the tight fitting spandex outfits, but hey, a man can dream, right?
Posted Nov 2nd 2009 7:00PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: OpEd, Reality-Free, Mad Men
I had been expecting the JFK assassination to become part of the
Mad Men storyline from the moment they showed us the invitation for Margaret Sterling's wedding on November 23, 1963. Expectations are one thing. Watching the way the national tragedy was depicted was quite another. As I watched the scenes unfold, I was riveted to the screen – and that was a surprise to me because on Fox the Yankees and the Phillies were locked in a very tight World Series game, and I cared about the outcome.
But I found myself unable to turn away from
Mad Men. It wasn't pleasant to watch those black and white images of anchormen Walter Cronkite and Chet Huntley. The moment I saw the flickering images behind Harry and Pete in the Sterling-Cooper office, I knew what was happening. It was terrific storytelling, by the way, for the viewer to know, but for Pete and Harry to be oblivious.
Continue reading Mad Men gave me the chills
Posted Oct 12th 2009 1:38PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: OpEd, Awards, Emmys, Reality-Free, Mad Men
Last month,
Mad Men was celebrating winning a slew of Emmys. One of them was for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series, the episode entitled
"Meditations In An Emergency." When
creator Matthew Weiner went onto the stage to grab the Emmy, with him was Kater Gordon, the co-writer of that episode. Today,
Kater Gordon was let go from Mad Men.
Are you shocked? Apparently, the industry press is. Gordon had risen from personal assistant to writer's assistant to member of the writing staff. After the Emmy, you would think that she was in like Flynn.
However, something must have gone awry or why has she been given her walking papers? And if you think it's not a dismissal, listen to this announcement from the show:
Continue reading Emmy-winning writer let go from Mad Men
Posted Oct 9th 2009 10:57AM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Interviews, Emmys, Reality-Free, Mad Men
It's hard to say that a show that's already won a small U-Haul's worth of Emmys and other awards can be having a breakout season, but that seems to be what's happening with
Mad Men during its third season. The buzz around the show has been as loud as we've heard since
The Sopranos went to black, and that's not a coincidence; the man who created the early-1960s world of Sterling Cooper, Matt Weiner, was a writer on the landmark HBO drama.
Weiner just completed shooting season three, and he took time out of his post-production process to sit down with me on Monday and talk about how the season has been going so far. I tried to get him to talk about what seems to be the show's inevitable roll towards the cataclysmic event of 1963, the Kennedy assassination, but Weiner was tight-lipped as usual. However, his observations on how he approaches events like that is an interesting read. Oh, and we also touch upon how he came up with the idea to run over a British ad exec's foot with a lawn mower, which is a good story by itself...
Continue reading Matthew Weiner of Mad Men: The TV Squad Interview
Posted Aug 17th 2009 12:35AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: OpEd, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free, Mad Men
(S03E01) The more things change, the more they stay the same. Don has returned to Betty, the baby's on the way, but all's not right in Don's world. There's turmoil in the office and a current of unrest thanks to the British takeover of Sterling Cooper.
But if you hoped, or believed, that Don's sojourn to Los Angeles and his contemplation of another life was a wake-up call, think again. Don Draper remains Dick Whitman. A leopard doesn't change his spots.
Continue reading Mad Men: Out of Town (season premiere)
Posted Oct 21st 2008 11:35AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Pickups and Renewals, Reality-Free, Mad Men
As Bob wrote the other day, AMC has given the Emmy-award winning drama series
Mad Men a pick up for a third season. No shock, but that future will be greatly dependent on re-signing Matthew Weiner to continue as the show's creator. Imagining
Mad Men without Weiner at the helm is like Sterling Cooper without Don Draper as creative director!
However, while we're waiting to hear that Weiner's signed on the dotted line, the news today has me even more nervous.
Jon Hamm and John Slattery have yet to renegotiate their contracts, which means the stars of
Mad Men could be done with next week's season finale.
I don't believe that's going to happen, but Roger Friedman floated the possibility out there. He even suggests that Jon Hamm's star has risen so high, so fast that he could be the next George Clooney. Clooney, you'll remember, parlayed a few seasons of
ER into a movie career (although there was more to it than that).
Continue reading Is the future of Mad Men in doubt?
Posted Aug 25th 2008 3:04PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: TV Squad Lists, Reality-Free, Mad Men
Recently, when
I interviewed Matt Weiner, the creator of AMC's Mad Men, we talked about the movies, books and television shows that influenced the inception of the show. The 1960 Oscar-winning best picture
The Apartment was one, so were the sitcoms
Dobie Gillis and
The Dick Van Dyke Show.
Of all the television shows he mentioned, though, there was one that was the most influential. "You can't have the '60s without
The Twilight Zone. It is a mind opening experience for a generation," said Matt. "It was not just science fiction, it dealt with social issues. It's filled with the texture of real life. Just the idea of having a show every week where you don't know who is going to be in it and what it's going to be about, to have this acceptance of the fact that we don't know everything about the world. That in itself was something."
Going through
The Twilight Zone episode guide, there are quite a few shows in which you can see where
Mad Men could find inspiration. Here's four that reminded me of Don and Betty and Pete and Sterling Cooper:
Continue reading The Mad Men-Twilight Zone connection - VIDEOS
Posted Aug 9th 2008 1:10AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, Episode Reviews, Reality-Free
(S01E10) "All right, let's go fix this family."
Oh, if only it were as simple as a family vacation to repair the damage to the Millers. It's clear by now that something's missing between Bruce and Susan because she can't stop thinking of Roger.
And Laurie is going through teenage rebellion -- I recognize the symptoms -- and Bruce's answer is to threaten her boyfriend and rip the phone cord out of the wall. Of all the characters, Bruce needs the most work for the writers. He's way too predictable.
While the Millers are struggling, so too are the Thompsons. Janet made an appointment with a psychiatrist -- for Roger. The truth is that they both need counseling, as the therapist realized when she spoke with them. Janet is so much a woman of that time, unsure about getting a job because it may emasculate Roger and struggling with the attention she's received -- and enjoyed -- from Tom.
Continue reading Swingtown: Running on Empty
Posted Aug 8th 2008 4:23PM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Interviews, Reality-Free, Mad Men
When Matt Weiner was a successful sitcom writer -- CBS's
Becker -- he had this idea for another kind of show. He couldn't figure out how to pitch it, so he wrote a sample script.
The Sopranos' creator David Chase read it and hired him. After copping a couple of Emmys for his work on that HBO drama, Weiner finally got his spec script sold. Now,
Mad Men has earned 16 Emmy nominations and Matt Weiner is working on the second season of the show.
Recently, for
TV Week, I interviewed Matt about the Emmy nominations. Here are some other thoughts he shared with me about
Mad Men:
TVS: What's the show all about to you?Matt Weiner: A lot of the episodes are about "who am I." A lot of the shows are about what's embarrassing. A lot of it's about denial, about how we juggle our work and our private lives. A lot of the issues that came up in the early 1960s are really hitting us right now.
Continue reading Matt Weiner of Mad Men: The TV Squad Interview
Posted Jul 25th 2008 7:33PM by Joel Keller
Filed under: Industry, TCA Press Tour, TV Squad Lists, Reality-Free
So I've been back from LA for a couple of days, watching Rich and Keith file frantic reports from Comic-Con. It just makes me shake my head in sympathy. Though CC is a different animal from the TCAs, in both structure and in sheer volume of people and activities, I still know exactly how they feel. It all starts to feel like a blur after awhile -- panels, reporter scrums, parties, meeting your favorite (and not-so-favorite) TV stars... When you get back to "normal life," it almost feels like it never happened.
Anyway, now that I have a day or two to reflect, I took
a cue from our friends at AOL and came up with a list of things I learned on this press tour. But this list will involve both the network-related things I learned with what I learned about celebrities, my fellow critics, and myself.
Continue reading Things I learned from the press tour - TCA Report
Posted Jul 10th 2008 6:56PM by Kristin Sample
Filed under: Industry, TV on the Bigscreen, TCA Press Tour, Reality-Free
During the HBO's panel at the TCA Press Tour, executives Richard Plepler, Co-president, and Michael Lombardo, President of Programming and West Coast Operations, said they'd be interested in doing a
Sopranos movie and a second
Sex and the City movie. Plepler said that Warner Bros. and New Line are definitely interested in doing another
Sex and the City movie. They are trying to put something together, but there's no timeline. "Everyone associated with the project was really heartened by the fans and by the new fans to the show," Plepler said.
As far as a
Sopranos feature goes, Lombardo says HBO would be delighted to take part in it. He says that series creator David Chase is in France on vacation right now but, "If David wants to do it, we'd be delight to explore that."
When the executives were pressed about
Mad Men (rumors are abound that HBO turned down the show and AMC snatched it up), Lombardo said only this, "Heres the bottom line, it's a wonderful show and I wish it were on HBO. Matt [Weiner is] an extraordinary talent and I hope that one day, he'll do something for us."
Would you see another
Sex and the City movie? How about a
Sopranos movie?
Posted Jul 10th 2008 9:07AM by Allison Waldman
Filed under: Reality-Free, Mad Men
Is there a new trend in the television landscape? Could be. At the TCA panel for
Mad Men, creator Matt Weiner, revealed that the show is only going to
run four more years.
That's right, the man has a plan. Each season of
Mad Men will jump ahead approximately two years, so that when Don Draper's story comes to an end, it will be 1969. Can you imagine how radically the show will look by the end of the 1960s? With their attention to detail, it'll be amazing.
So what's the trend? It's setting an endpoint for a series.
Battlestar Galactica did it, and
Lost has as well. Traditionally, American television series run and run and run until the creators choose to end or the network calls it quits which usually corresponds to viewers having tuned out.
Continue reading Mad Men has a ten-year plan
Posted Jul 13th 2007 11:01AM by Julia Ward
Filed under: Other Drama Shows, OpEd, Early Looks
The late, great comedian Bill Hicks had a
certain recommendation for ad men. It went a little something like this, "By the way, if anyone here is in advertising or marketing, kill yourself...there's no rationalization for what you do...you are Satan's spawn filling the world with bile and garbage. You are f@cked, and you are f@cking us. Kill yourself. It's the only way to save your f@cking soul. Kill yourself...quit putting a goddamn dollar sign on every f@cking thing on this planet."
Continue reading Mad Men -- An early look
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