I am still very much a twentieth century TV watcher, or at least still have a 1900's mentality when it comes to the small screen. I'm used to shows premiering in the fall and wrapping up around Memorial Day, with two dozen or so episodes per season. Back then if you missed an installment of your favorite show, too bad. You either video taped it once the technology became available (if you could figure out how the timer worked) or else you waited for the summer rerun. Now in the age of cable and DVRs such quaint things like broadcast schedules and "must see" moments that everyone talks about the next day are over, more or less. Nielsen now takes into account those who watch programs by way of their TiVo three and seven days out from the original broadcast. Even the whole concept of a season as we understood it is out the window. In the world of cable a show's run can begin anytime of year and usually goes for less than three months. Even the major over the air networks are adopting a more fluid notion of scheduling. Not that these things are bad, simply confusing for someone who grew up in the glory days of the "Big Three," and all the hoopla that usually surrounded the roll out their fall lineups and the subsequent May Sweeps finales (Showing My Age Alert: there wasn't any Fox Broadcasting Company when I was a kid).
What's even more confusing is this whole split last season thing, inaugurated by the Sopranos, and now imitated widely by both TV dramas and movie franchises. All the other changes I mentioned above are simply that: changes that really aren't good or bad but reflect the changing habits of viewers. But this splitting a season in two I'm not so sure about. I've never gotten a satisfactory answer as to why it's done. I'm sure it has to do with money, because it can't be because it enhances the art of dramatic story telling, especially in light of last night's Mad Men "Half Season Finale."
Because we are really dealing with two abbreviated seasons instead of a truly unified set of fourteen episodes there was this need, I guess, to bring things to some dramatic conclusion immediately. The problem is that Mad Men isn't an instant gratification kind of show. Some critics have used the word glacial to describe it's pacing. Last night, and even to a certain extent last week, plot developments seemed to be moving at warp speed. Yes, we knew Ted Chaough was depressed and detached, but to the point that he would pull his cut the engines in mid-flight stunt with the Tropicana people? We knew that the big guy from rival agency McCann, who's had the hots (professionally speaking) for Don since forever, has been hanging around, but a merger just to land his big fish? Roger's been struggling with his untapped potential born of being born into his position for years, but all of a sudden he's the Master of the Deal, taking charge and pulling the merger together? We knew Megan and Don were not long as a married couple, but the over the phone breakup still seemed abrupt. It's not that anything that happened last night was inconsistent with the general trajectory of the story, (with one notable exception) but that they seemed to cut a lot of steps out of the process of getting there, steps that would have made it all a bit more coherent.
The most confusing moment of the night was the death of Bert Cooper (Robert Morse). One minute he's smiling, watching the moon landing with his maid in the comfort of his living room, and the next Roger is sadly taking the name plate off his office door, after we hear one side of the telephone conversation that brought the news. I understand how his death moves the plot along, but the way it was handled looked like a sloppy piece of editing more than a shocking plot twist.
I will end this part one postmortem of Mad Men on a positive note. The fond farewell, by way of the ending musical - fantasy sequence, given to Robert Morse was a beautiful, whimsical touch to an ordinarily heavy show. I've read some criticism of it this morning, and I get it; Don, the sole witness of this vision, was neither asleep, delirious with fever or stoned. It's a tad self indulgent and inconsistent with the overall tone of the show. But I say, as Bert did once to Pete Campbell when he blew the whistle of Don's true identity, who cares. As for the knock that the musical number is unconnected with the rest of the story, I happen to agree with the folks at The Orange Couch that the song, "The Best Things in Life are Free," is a relevant commentary on the choices Don has pursued, not just this season but for the the entire series' run.
While I'm frustrated with the whole half season finale thing, and I guess Matt Weiner did do the best he could with the restrictions AMC put on him, as I read from one critic. Wait until 2015 if I must to see what finally happens, I'll be back before the end of the week with a more in depth look at what I thought of Mad Men Season 7.1.
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