I laughed at this. Then I pictured the typical preview and a bunch of flash cuts of the partners dryly saying “Adjudicate to the third party…” “compensatory damages…” “limited liability…” “What’s the statement of the nature…?” and laughed again.
Beg your pardon? The kind of character he’s *trying *- and not very successfully- to portray isn’t exactly cryptic. I doubt anyone here doesn’t understand geeky, awkward, adolescent boy. We call that good writing and characterization.That’s got nothing to do with the fact that he cannot deliver a line in a believable manner. We call that bad acting.
I just wanted to throw out that your wife’s situation isn’t universal, and it isn’t a “one size fits all” type of experience. I was bombarded with messages about it from a young age, was expecting it, and was not particularly surprised/ecstatic/dismayed. Not because I am an unusually strong or stoic person, but just because I was super well prepared.
I must be missing something here. Wouldn’t this just give both the ad agency and the media company (TV, magazines, radio) equal incentive to drive the price of media spots super high?
Exactly. Why do so many women make menstruation into such a drama?
(that comment is not directed to anyone in particular)
I’ll admit that he’s not a great “actor”, but I think he’s doing very well. Many boys that age are essentially lumps of meat. There may be other ways to play this, but the character he’s developed doesn’t seem unnatural or poorly acted to me.
Additionally, I’ve heaped criticism on January Jones for her poor acting but think she’s done much better this year. Maybe it’s her, maybe it’s because she has a different storyline and less visibility. I’ve felt that her biggest acting flaw was depicting anger and she’s done well in the scenes with Kiernan Shipka. She still doesn’t seem natural in her interactions with Jon Hamm, but that may be more a function of their fictional relationship than a lack of ability.
I’m not impressed by Megan’s friend. Neither her character nor the actress feels right to me. I also think that Christina Hendrick’s acting could be a little less stiff, but she’s not there for her skills as a thespian. Overall, I’ve been with these characters long enough that I tend to see them as real people and any quirks in the actor’s abilities have become those of the character.
It didn’t work that way. There may have been incentives for the agencies to place unnecessary ad buys in media that wouldn’t give a good return, though.
It’s accurate that in the 60s the entire industry did turn over from commissions to fee deals. The costs of ads did increase but for other reasons that would have occurred no matter what. By the end of the 50, television had largely abandoned the practice of one company or ad agency owning a show and all the spots in it for what was called “magazine” style of putting a number of short ads in a network-controlled program. That required placing dozens or hundreds of ad spots over time rather than the costs of a single weekly program. Television advertising became mandatory and the networks had a monopoly. Print advertising also coincidentally and simultaneously became more expensive because of the switch to color, for which ads were several times as expensive as black and white. Newspapers still controlled local markets, radio became a major advertising medium, billboards took off. Suddenly there were more places in which to advertise, all getting larger markets and charging more for them. Budgets for advertising skyrocketed, and companies wanted to cut costs and just as importantly wanted to see exactly where the money was going. Paying fees for services made it clearer what the breakdowns were for writing, photography, research, sales, and all the other branches of large firms.
Agencies got smaller cuts but of larger pies, so they still made out well. But that also meant that larger firms offering more services could charge more fees, so a wave of mergers, takeovers, and consolidations happened. That’ll mostly happen in the 70s after the timeframe of this show but it starts mid-60s and fee structure was one of many major reasons.
Sally is a little girl. It was a big deal to her.
Once you get used to it, it’s not a big deal.
And when it stops, you don’t miss it. 
He didn’t want to be buried/viewed with them. Lane viewed the specs as a personal weakness. Recall that when St. John and his toadie popped in for a visit, Lane’s secretary, Mr. Hooker, reminded him to remove his spectacles.
Well, he’ll never golf again.
Argh, this is horrible. Lane is one of my favorite characters.
I am watching the scene where Don confronts him in iTunes and I keep pausing it.
The scene would be even more interesting if Lane knew of the lies in Don’s past.
EDIT: Of course, I have not read any of the thread.
So at least he’s got that going for him
Thanks, I forgot about that.
Would someone please explain what happened in the scene between Kenny and Roger? I know that Kenny didn’t want to be used to get his father-in-law’s business, but there was a lot going on there that I didn’t get. Why didn’t Roger fire him, as Don suggested? Why doesn’t he want Pete to be involved? Thanks
Ken is going to willingly be a key player in this business, but Roger will lie and say that they forced him to be. Also, Pete can’t touch it.
What was it that Ken used to get Roger to agree to his requests? He was threatening to tell his wife - what?
I think Ken doesn’t want to be seen by his FIL as using family ties to get business. Don said to fire Ken if he objected to them doing business with his FIL, but I think Roger decided to talk it over with Ken first. Ken wasn’t fired because he was willing to go along with it on his own terms. Those terms were that Ken’s FIL had to believe that Ken was forced by his bosses to work on the project and that Pete has nothing to do with it. We’ve seen Ken’s disgust with Pete’s behavior in the past with regard to clients. Most recently we know Ken is disgusted with Pete over the Joan/Jaguar affair. He wants to make sure Pete doesn’t get anywhere near his FIL.
Don wasn’t saying to fire Ken because he didn’t want him working there. Don was telling Roger that if Ken was going to stand in the way of getting this business, Ken was expendable. As long as Ken plays along, Don isn’t going to ask why he’s still drawing a paycheck. Roger doesn’t need to explain anything.
Ken says that he suspects the meeting with Roger is no good and probably thought he was being fired or something. Although Roger doesn’t explicitly state that Ken’s options are Dow or unemployment, I don’t think there was a question in Ken’s mind. Sure, Ken could leave but what other ad firm would let a potential path towards Dow go untouched? Ken’s lucky his wishes were respected for as long as they were.
So Ken says he’ll go along so long as the story is that they twisted his arm (again, not really a fabrication when you get down to it) and Pete stays off the account. Ken didn’t especially like Pete to begin with and likes him less now after the Joan situation. Ken was there at the initial meeting with the Jaguar guy and no doubt believes (right or wrong) that they could have steered him off Joan but Pete pulled them all into the sleazy route. Not that their relationship was great before – remember Pete’s “Remember I’m the tops” rant when Cosgrove was hired by SCDP last season. I don’t think Ken used to put much energy into disliking Pete, more of bemused toleration, until the Joan thing though. Ken knows that shutting Pete out of what will be SCDP’s largest account will drive Pete mad.
I’m sure part of Ken’s reluctance to involve himself with Dow comes from his wife. Ken was asking what he’d say when her father called, asking about SCDP pursuing Dow. Roger says not to answer the phone. I don’t think Ken was threatening Roger, he was saying “this will be an issue for me due to my wife” and Roger was asking what would make the issue worth the trouble.
Or, that he was in a meeting with his boss when SCDP called to arrange the meeting and he was unaware that negotiations were being made. And at that moment, Ken was in a meeting with his boss and to that moment had been unaware of what was happening.
Ken is the unsullied one at SCDP. Even Peggy was willing to cut a few throats when the situation called for it. He takes care of his accounts without resorting to any of the backstabbing and dirty dealings that the rest of the firm is engaged in. As I stated in an earlier post, it’s a job to him, not a career. He wants to make enough money to pursue his small pleasures like writing stories. He seems unlikely to go for the grand gestures like having a stereo console big enough to house a body.
But nobody in business stays perfectly clean. For the purposes of the series, if they’re courting his father-in-law then there’s a plot point there (or a dead end to distract viewers). The war is escalating, there’s been a specific mention of Napalm, maybe that’s where it goes. It’s a classic literary theme - the innocent is dragged down to the level of the damned.
How does Ken know about Joan-Jaguar thing? I thought only the partners knew. I think he just hates Pete- was it he and Pete that had to compete for for the same job under the Brits at one point- or because he thinks Pete is just generally slimy?