mad men

I have been meaning to watch Mad Men for ages and so when it showed up on my favourite things list I had my excuse. Joel and I started watching season one last week (thanks to David who lent us his two boxed sets!). David warned us that it might take awhile to get into but we were immediately hooked. There are so many things to critique and applaud about this show but right now I'm mainly just dismayed by the speed of my addiction. I watched only two episodes and suddenly "needed" more. It makes me think of all those nineteenth-century novels that readers were reputed to crave "like a drug." So, too, my tv watching. We never watch tv and keep meaning to cancel our cable but whenever we start watching these series it seems we can't stop. 24 was a disaster. Joel and I would start watching after the kids went to sleep and continue watching into the night, thinking at 2am, 3am, etc, "just one more" until we could barely keep our eyes open. We've been able to control ourselves a bit better with Mad Men (I won't mention, however, what episode we're on after only a week of watching). I'll return to this topic again later when I've watched more and feel like commenting on the show itself. So far I'm struck by all that drinking and all that smoking and the polished zaniness of a housewife cooly shooting homing pigeons in her back yard with a rifle. It is chilling and absorbing and just writing this makes me want to watch more now. Good thing I never took up smoking.

Other series we've watched and liked: 24, Grey's Anatomy, NYPD Blue (years and years and years ago) and 2 other shows too embarrassing to name here (and the bar is already pretty low).
Other tv shows we watch: The Daily Show once every 2 months or so