TV Eye

In case you didn't know, TV Eye is now on Twitter (@ChronicleTVEye). Although my Twitterati are modest by other standards, new peeps join every day. I'm tickled by some of the things my followers Tweet (for the uninitiated, "Tweet" is Twitterese for posts or comments). A highlight: @David_in_Austin often amuses me with his Tweets, including this one: "I implore you to acquire season 1 of Breaking Bad & watch season 2 re-airing starting 8/17. Please? For the children?"

I am inclined to follow David's advice, given that Breaking Bad was nominated for two Emmys this year. Actually, I don't remember giving Breaking Bad a particularly bad review, but maybe not the effervescent one many of its fans believe I should have. Let me meet @David_in_Austin halfway: I'll revisit Breaking Bad if he revisits Mad Men – which he called the "most overrated show this decade." Overrated? Oh! The children!

Why do I love Mad Men, which returned for a third season last Sunday? Where do I begin?

"Story matters here" may be the AMC's newest slogan (the cable netlet that carries the series), but it aptly describes Mad Men. But it's not just a good story – it's a good story, well told, that assumes an intelligent audience is watching. The opening sequence of the third season's premiere episode is a case in point. It starts with our protagonist Don (Jon Hamm) up late, heating milk for his pregnant wife (January Jones) who is suffering from insomnia. As he stirs the milk, he drifts into a reverie of his presumed past. How this is shot – with Don "looking" at the past, from various angles in his kitchen, late at night, is a far cry from the typical lapse into black-and-white, out-of-focus images and all the other wonky camera tricks viewers have been tutored to understand as a flashback. Instead, we are shown how to understand what is happening by the well-timed reaction shots. Furthermore, the work needed by the viewer to follow the sequence is challenging enough to be satisfying, but not so "arty" as to be head-scratching. In other words, it's brilliantly done.

Images are not wasted. From the recurring image of Don's bare feet in the season premiere to the image of him skimming the skin off the heated milk to the explosion of ink in the pocket of Don's closeted co-worker Sal (Bryan Batt), exposed when he finally lets himself enjoy an overture from another man, the images in Mad Men are both utilitarian and poetic. Which just goes to show that the story is not just in the words. So much is said in the unspoken. If this sounds like Filmmaking 101, just remember that there is still plenty of TV out there that caters to the lowest common denominator. Mad Men isn't one of those shows.

In 1995, Charles McGrath wrote a now oft-quoted New York Times Magazine article called "The Triumph of the Prime-Time Novel." In this, he states that "[t]hese shows [ER, NYPD Blue] are flourishing in a way that they haven't since the very early days of the medium, and have grown in depth and sophistication into what might be thought of as a brand-new genre: call it the prime-time novel." McGrath's piece could ring true today, except he says that "network TV now is less under the thumb of the money men than either the movies or the Broadway theater" and that as a result, TV is "more daring and less formulaic than either the stage or the big screen." McGrath can't be faulted for not being a fortune-teller. Most of what's on network TV today may be daring in pushing the boundaries of taste (as in reality series), but formulas still rule. What McGrath says that remains true in the present is his comment that TV has "become much more of a writer's medium than either movies or Broadway." The best example of this is Mad Men, which is the finest example of a "prime-time novel" today with its artful use of imagery, language, style, and of course, story.

I could go on and on, but space limits my undying praise.

Overrated? On the contrary. Mad Men makes you love TV again.

As always, stay tuned.