Mad World on Kritik: Prelude to Mad Men Season 7.4
"What's Next?" Part 1
Guest Writer: Dana Polan
Saturday, May 3, 2014
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Mad Men
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by Unit for Criticism
"What's Next?"
Written by: Dana Polan (New York University)
Part 1
What do we know about any episode of a continuing TV serial before it airs? I want today (literally today: Saturday before my assigned episode airs tomorrow) to, paraphrasing a key science fiction series from the time of Mad Men, boldly go where no (Mad) men have gone before, and try science-fictionally to predict what tomorrow's episode will be about. I won't do a lot of that, and will concentrate more generally on what we know going into any episode such as this. In Part 1, I want to talk about how we move toward endings and, as well, toward the next installment of a series we know is ending. In Part 2 (to be written after tomorrow night's episode), I'll look at what I got wrong and analyze what we were given instead. I do expect to get it wrong. While there are certain aspects of Mad Men that might make us think we're in a predictable narrative universe--for example, the myriad plot lines of the myriad characters, our background knowledge about the ways this show interweaves plot lines and deliberate veering and unpredictability, our even broader background knowledge of what happened in each moment of the 1960s (quick, go check out "1969" on Wikipedia!)--and that we might want to draw on as aids in figuring out where the story is going (to the above, we might add the "Next on Mad Men" montage we see at the end of each episode, something I'll return to), I think little of this really helps us in knowing what's next, even though we know something's coming. (As a famous song from the beginning of the Sixties "predicts": "Something's coming, something good, if I can wait! Something's coming, I don't know what it is, but it is gonna be great!")
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What do we know about any episode of a continuing TV serial before it airs? I want today (literally today: Saturday before my assigned episode airs tomorrow) to, paraphrasing a key science fiction series from the time of Mad Men, boldly go where no (Mad) men have gone before, and try science-fictionally to predict what tomorrow's episode will be about. I won't do a lot of that, and will concentrate more generally on what we know going into any episode such as this. In Part 1, I want to talk about how we move toward endings and, as well, toward the next installment of a series we know is ending. In Part 2 (to be written after tomorrow night's episode), I'll look at what I got wrong and analyze what we were given instead. I do expect to get it wrong. While there are certain aspects of Mad Men that might make us think we're in a predictable narrative universe--for example, the myriad plot lines of the myriad characters, our background knowledge about the ways this show interweaves plot lines and deliberate veering and unpredictability, our even broader background knowledge of what happened in each moment of the 1960s (quick, go check out "1969" on Wikipedia!)--and that we might want to draw on as aids in figuring out where the story is going (to the above, we might add the "Next on Mad Men" montage we see at the end of each episode, something I'll return to), I think little of this really helps us in knowing what's next, even though we know something's coming. (As a famous song from the beginning of the Sixties "predicts": "Something's coming, something good, if I can wait! Something's coming, I don't know what it is, but it is gonna be great!")