November 2, 2009

Mad Men and Why I'm Almost Over This Show

This has been a pretty uneven season of Mad Men. I've loved some episodes, while other episodes left me a little cold. But this is the first time in almost three seasons of the show where I straight-up HATED an episode. I feel bad for admitting it, since this was the "Very Special Episode" of Mad Men where President Kennedy gets assassinated, and I shouldn't really be hating on the episode where Kennedy gets shot and everybody is sad, but dang did this ep piss me off!!! At this point, for me, Mad Men should just turn into the Pete and Trudy show and everybody else needs to go away. Actually, no, scratch that. Everybody can stay but just get rid of Don and Betty. I'm completely over Don and Betty. OVER. Which is annoying, to say the least, since the whole Don and Betty thing had actually been one of my favorite storylines on the show (at least before season 3). Now I want nothing more than for Betty and Don to just go away and take their boring affairs and their boring problems and their boring self pity and leave me alone. I'm over it. Frankly, it's not much fun watching a marriage disintegrate for no other reason than the writers insist on turning these characters into thoroughly unlikeable people.

What pisses me off is that Don and Betty were not unlikeable in seasons 1 and 2. They had flaws, they made mistakes, they did things that pissed me off, but I still felt affection for them as people. But now, after the abortion that has been season 3, I can't feel anything for these people. Well, actually, I still feel a little bit for Don -- because I feel like, for all his flaws, he's constantly TRYING to be a better person. He might be a jerk and a screw-up and a liar, but at least he wants to be better, even if he fails at it.