don draper ate my life

So: got back to Delhi after the christmas holidays, immediately had to organize the trip to KL, came home and Phet went out of town and you'd think I might've found some time to post but OH NO I didn't. It's all due to the curse of the downloading of all 3 seasons of Mad Men that Phet did. Curse the availability of collected TV series!

This happened to me last year, only it was the curse of Freaks and Geeks. Then, before Christmas I succumbed to the Canadian siren call of Slings and Arrows. And now, Mad Men. While I loved the show, I hated feeling like such a crackhead. "Hey Ji, why don't you go watch three hours of movies with your sister so Mummie can feed peanuts to the monkey on her back?" "Hey Seung Yi, why don't you read yourself your own goodnight storybook because Mom has important business to deal with and she needs to wear these earphones and find out whether Peggy Olson is going to go to Confession or not!"

It was awwwwful. And the worst part of watching a series like this, shooting it directly into the vein over the course of a two week binge, is that you feel so empty and used and sick afterwards. TV shows are meant to be digested slowly. They have their own internal story arc logic that only works at a very specific time scale, and if you try to take them all in at once, there is a queasy non-resolution and dissatisfaction at the end of it all. It's not the same for sit coms or comedies in general; no one really cares what's "happening" in the show, it's the hijinks that are fun, and the characters sort of stay the same. I could watch any episode of Thirty Rock in any order and be quite content. But it just doesn't work the same way for drama.

Let's compare watching a TV series with watching a movie. When you watch a movie, you dedicate a couple of hours max of your life to experiencing it. Most movies have a tidy storyline and dramatic structure that leads, at the end of the movie, to the viewer feeling basically satisfied and that the various ends of the story have been tied up. (Ok, Dad, not for all movies, like weird Latvian poor house experimental documentaries, but you know what I mean...) If you watch a TV series on a weekly basis, you get your hit of the the show, and then you have a full week to come down from the experience and be ready for the next episode. With TV, the storylines have to sort of arc in each show, but have to have meta- and super-meta arcs so that you want to keep watching not only to the end of the season, but to the end of the very final season. So you're strung along. No surprises, of course, in my analysis. But the problem is that now when you can get a bunch of episodes at once it destroys the moment of satiation. You're like, watch! more! watch! more! watch! more! And the more you watch, the more conditioned you are to the experience and the more you need to watch to re-capture that fleeting satisfaction you might've felt when you watched your first episode. It's a scourge, I tell you!

I have to say, though, that Mad Men was plenty of fun. I've created my own 3 Question Mad Men Personality Quiz. Here are my answers - for those of you Mad Men viewers out there, write back your own answers to the questions and I'll post them!

MAD MEN PERSONALITY QUIZ

1. Which Mad Men character do you like best?

2. Which Mad Men character do you most resemble?

3. What should happen in the next season of Mad Men?

MY ANSWERS:

1. Sterling, obviously. Dude who plays him is an insanely good actor. I actually can't imagine him having a life or personality outside of his character. The white hair, the slim-cut suits, the boundless good humour and the ability to drink and drink and drink and drink and drink some more, his real affection for the ladies, and best of all, his snappy comebacks to stupid questions. He's all that and a pack of Luckies.

2. I'd like to think I most resemble Miss Fuller, Sally's teacher, who dances around the Maypole, entrances Don with her un-shellacked hair and ability to make pinhole cameras, and who is deeply empathetic towards her students (I supposed one might question whether sleeping with the Dad of the student who she most empathizes with would be considered a good idea or not, but c'mon, it's Don Draper)...

See how cute she looks, standing in front of the classroom map and the alpahbet? That's TOTALLY how my students see me every day.

Unfortunately, I think I probably most resemble Betty Draper. No, I don't look like Grace Kelly, I can't wear stockings, I don't smoke while I make pot roast, I am not having a secret affair with a congressional aide (shame about that one, really), I'm not blonde or a size zero, I don't own sheer drapes or sheer lingerie, and I'm not so great at horse jumping. But I am really good at doing the angry Mom look, and I have acquired the knack of telling my kids to go watch TV when I want to indulge in my secret vices (see above)...

3. My expectation for Season Four: Roger Sterling gives up his slim brunette poetry-writing trophy wife, moves to Delhi, and hosts marvellously indulgent gin-fuelled parties that he invites us to. Dream come true!

[Delhi-14-February-2010]