Benji Wilson of the Times (UK edition) did a wonderful piece on Mad Men. As the show is rolling out in England, it’s nice to know they are receiving it as well as we have.

He talks about the appearance of the Volkswagen ad on the show and its effect on the characters:

Because Mad Men uses advertising as a metaphor for identity – are you how you present yourself to other people, or is the hard-sell just there to cover up your faults as a product? – watching Draper and co struggling to come to terms with a new type of advertising goes hand in hand with watching them face up to the climactic change that the 1960s was to bring.

And Weiner chimes in a lot. We love that.

“Dramatically speaking I liken it to the Titanic,” says Weiner. “Why do people watch that movie? Everybody knows how it ends. But there is some pleasure in seeing people struggling to survive when the catastrophe happens, and there’s also some intrinsic drama in people walking around talking about how safe the ship is. That’s really what I’m doing.”

As always, your life will improve if you RTWT™.

(Edit) And Deb adds this:

There’s another review in the London Times, linked on the same page, here. They call it “cancel-everything TV” (which I guess is British for “must see TV”).

And, (me again, RKL)… check out the super cool picture atop that second article.