Network television rips off Mad Men

Update: I meant to but I forgot to include The Hour, a BBC series that's similar to Mad Men.

Nostalgia is a powerful thing. It allows us to remember the past in a purely crystallized way. Thanks to nostalgia, we actually remember All That! as being a funny show. Thanks to nostalgia, we all had excellent relationships with our fathers and our girlfriends were the sweetest women in the world. Recently, network television has been trying to tap into the market of early '60s nostalgia, which Mad Men previously cornered the market on. In doing so though, what they're really attempting is to bring nostalgia to a time period that never existed.

Look at the fun they're having in the past.

The '60s were turbulent times full of great change and conflict. The whole decade was really just one glorified transitional period from the button-downed '50s to the wild '70s (with some drugs thrown in for good measure). And we even went to the moon. The networks have since created a prepackaged illusion of the '60s, popularized by Mad Men and bowdlerized baby-boomer stories. Pan Am and Playboy Club don't offer a respective look at a different time. Instead they offer a snow globe of kitsch, with some period-appropriate drama whenever it's convenient. Hell these are the television networks that ban smoking on most shows. How could they ever properly represent the '60s?

The '60s ran on paranoia and nicotine.

The comparison to Mad Men is unavoidable. Four years ago a slow-burn drama set in the '60s sounded like a bomb waiting to happen. Hell, all the networks passed on it. Even HBO and Showtime didn't want to gamble with it. AMC took Matthew Weiner's show in and it has payed off wonderfully for the channel. Having just won its fourth straight Emmy for Best Drama, Mad Men is the undisputed critical darling. And now, four years late to the party, ABC and NBC want to cash in on the era.

Amber Heard's hotness couldn't even save Playboy Club.

This is usually the portion where I predict the failure of both shows but Playboy Club already beat me to it. It took just three episodes for the show to fall flat on its face. Terra Nova even succeeded in finding an audience and that's just a Jurassic Park/Avatar mashup (Stephen Lang plays the same dude in both productions). And the funny thing is, Playboy Club and Pan Am are just as fanciful as Terra Nova. It's just further escapism. Critics and audiences seem to prefer Pan Am though.

The show is bolstered by Christina Ricci's big-headed appeal.

These two shows premiering right next to each other just shows how behind the networks are creatively. They're forced to ape previously existing successes, but with their own spin to make it their own. What they don't realize is that if they took chances with original programming than they could be the trendsetters, instead of having to go by what cable successes dictate. Even coping successes can turn into colossal failures, such as Playboy Club, so the network should take this as a lesson. That and everything that could be said about the '60s is already being done wonderfully on Mad Men (whether it be sexism, racism or general pigheadedness). What's the point of loading up a plane with forced-feminist when Mad Men's Peggy Olsen does it so much more effortlessly? If the shows had anything new to say than the story would be different but that's just their problem. The stories aren't different, only the settings.

I'll just watch New Girl instead. God I love Zooey.

AMC whores out Mad Men

If there was a short list of the best television in the past decade, Mad Men would find itself on the top of the list. Never mind the three straight Emmys and the heaps of praise. Never mind the ratings (not as good as Walking Dead but good nonetheless) or Christina Hendrick's boobs. Watching it, it's an amazingly crafted show with water cooler discussion topics abound.

Boobs help though.

Mad Men is the critical darling of cable. It's the crowing jewel of AMC's lineup and the show that single handedly validated cable television. Shows like the West Wing have already won countless Emmys for Outstanding Drama Series, but the fact that Mad Men has owned that award for the three past years is a testament to its quality. Even a relatively weak third season didn't stop it from winning the award. Yes, Tony Shalhoub and Monk have won plenty of awards for cable, but Monk is a comedy. It's not hard to beat out a sitcom with pathos. Drama is a much tougher category.

Monk went downhill when Sharona left anyway (and they changed the theme song)

In a perfect world, AMC would see their golden calf and leave it alone. In a perfect world they would allow Matthew Weiner (hehe, wiener) as much artistic freedom he wanted, creating for cable what HBO created with The Sopranos (as much as I want to make a Wire reference here, it didn't nearly have the following that Sopranos had). Instead AMC is now selling Mad Men out and ruining the reputation that they finally created with their original television.

Wiener...

AMC tried to strong arm Weiner into cutting down show time to create more commercials and allow more product placement. It's weird that a show about advertising men has gone this long without epic amounts of product placement, but that restraint such as that has helped make Mad Men what it is today. AMC should be trying to retain the artistic integrity of its first original show of merit. Back when Mad Men first premiered it was a gamble. AMC was known as the trashier TCM. Yet somehow, largely due to the Mad Men's quality, the channel has carved its own niche into television and has afforded itself the opportunity to make some really exciting and daring shows. While Rubicon didn't pay off, as interesting as it was, Walking Dead quickly became one of the most watched shows on television. And Bryan Cranston himself said that Mad Men was the reason he signed up with AMC for Breaking Bad. Cranston has since won three straight Emmys for Best Actor, awards that he totally deserves.

Walter White is more interesting than Dexter Morgan, sorry Michael C. Hall fans.

It was bad enough that AMC wedged wannabe Mad Men ads in between commercial breaks last season. Asinine commercials where two Don Draper-esque men talk about products. These commercials seemed nothing more than parodies, doing more to detract from the show than peddle shampoo. Really, these lame commercials show just what Mad Men would be like if it ended up on a network where it would be controlled by studios instead of capable showrunners such as Weiner.

WWDDD?

My griping about cutting two minutes of show may seem unnecessary, but consider the fact that AMC was negotiating for Weiner to cut down the cast member by two every new season. Such demands are not only ridiculous, but they are insulting to the show. Mad Men is an ensemble, character driven show. To demand such a condition is completely out of bounds. Luckily, after negotiations, the cast is now safe from being cut down. But to even demand such a thing shows that AMC does not respect the show that put them on the map and made them known for something other than Steven Seagal marathons.

Is it bad I actually wanted to see Tommy Lee Jones succeed in Under Siege?

Like Breaking Bad, the next season of Mad Men won't air anytime soon. The wait may be a little excruciating for some fans but hopefully by the end of it, Mad Men will have another amazing season. Some people claim that the show is boring but those people don't see past the old fashion wardrobes and ever-present alcohol. Mad Men is about America and the twentieth century through the ingenious perspective of an advertising agency. Who better to lead the audience through the ever changing culture of the 60s than the people who helped create, market, package and sell that image? In the end this whole negotiation thing might just be a ruse. AMC, no longer having to rely on Mad Men for ratings decides to put the show in it's place and assert itself contractually. Either way, Mad Men should be respected by everyone, including the channel that creates it.