Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		4.0
Overall		4.0

Mad Men: The Final Season, Part 1 Blu-ray Movie Review

Will the real Don Draper please stand up?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman October 21, 2014

Ladies and gentlemen, in the grand tradition of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 — Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 and The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 1 — The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2, we present to you now Mad Men: The Final Season, Part 1. In a perhaps craven attempt to keep the coffers full for as long as possible, AMC split the long running series’ “final” season into two mini-seasons of seven episodes each. It’s a marketing strategy that probably would have made ad guru Don Draper (Jon Hamm) proud, but it can’t escape the slight whiff of bean counters in some recondite skyscraper greedily poring over spreadsheets detailing the extra profits to be had by such a gambit. Mad Men has been filled with fascinating arcs from its first episode, and if the show has struggled at times, giving in to what might be thought of as Douglas Sirkian tendencies, it has been one of the more regularly well written and performed dramas on television. If the initial mysteries surrounding Draper’s identity have over time taken a kind of Freudian back seat, informing but not actually ultimately defining the character, Draper’s peccadilloes and missteps continue to provide grist for the mill as Mad Men enters its “final” year.

For those wanting to get up to speed or have a refresher course on Mad Men's story so far, click on our reviews of previous seasons here:

Mad Men: Season One Blu-ray review

Mad Men: Season Two Blu-ray review

Mad Men: Season Three Blu-ray review

Mad Men: Season Four Blu-ray review

Mad Men: Season Five Blu-ray review

As with the previous seasons of Mad Men, this “final” (I just can’t help putting that in quotes, given the marketing gambit involved) season picks up relatively soon after the end of the previous year’s episodes. In this case, the guys and gals of Sterling Cooper and other involved parties are experiencing the end of the Flower Power era as 1969 brings a new President (Nixon, of course) and a perhaps slightly less optimistic mien to both world events and their personal lives. This half of the season takes the characters through the first half of 1969, more or less, culminating in the epochal landing on the moon in July of that year.

That passage of time, with the inevitable feeling that an era is coming to close, is what tends to inform a lot of this opening set of episodes. The Summer of Love has perhaps given way to an Autumn of Discontent (as it were), with some, like Roger Sterling (John Slattery) desperately clinging to the last vestiges of their supposed “hipness,” while others, notably Megan Draper (Jessica Paré) seemingly resigned to the figurative writing on the wall and therefore determined to move on. Repercussions of longstanding behaviors continue to play into various characters’ lives, with Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss) realizing that aping Don may bring professional success but can also lead to personal problems, if not outright ruin.

Mad Men, perhaps a bit like the decade it’s been covering over the past several years, might feel a bit tired in the early going of this season, as characters are bi-coastal and certain machinations unfold that spill out into both Don’s professional and personal lives. Despite the somewhat lethargic ambience, there’s something very interesting that begins unfolding over the course of these initial episodes. For those who wondered if Don’s “secret identity” would ever become more than an intriguing sidebar (albeit one that obviously informed the character), there are indications here that showrunner Matthew Weiner and his writing team will be reinvigorating that idea, especially as Don’s own machinations become somewhat desperate.

The unspoken allegory here is of course between truth and illusion, the very foundation of much of modern advertising. Weiner never really exploited this concept overtly, and yet it was there from the first moment the camera panned in to the back of Don’s head, refusing to divulge the face of the character. When that face finally was shown, it was, in a word, two-faced, much like the disconnect between the utopian universe depicted in ads and the down to earth products that a consumer finally brings home after having relented to buy them.

The performers continue to do great work here. Olson once again has several standout moments, especially as Peggy begins to seethe at what she sees as a resurrection of the initially outcast Don. Vincent Kartheiser also has some fun moments as Pete Campbell, who seems to be reinventing himself as a kind of weird hybrid of Don and Roger. Less appealingly, January Jones and Christina Hendricks are kind of shunted off into the sidelines, and recurring guest star Harry Hamlin never seems to completely gel as Sterling Cooper's "new" Don Draper. Hamm continues to mine the seediness of Don while also bringing forth the character's own brand of flawed nobility.

Mad Men: The Final Season, Part 1 Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Mad Men: The Final Season, Part 1 is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. The series continues to be one of the most visually appealing pieces on television, with this season's California sunniness standing in quite nicely for last year's jaunt in Hawaii. Once again colors are wildly vivid and well saturated, with detail on the frankly kitschy looking costumes (what's up with that daisy, Peggy?) popping very well throughout each episode. Contrast is generally very strong, though some scenes, like some in Don's shrouded bedroom, lack much in the way of shadow detail. Image stability is excellent and I noticed no artifacts of any note.

Mad Men: The Final Season, Part 1 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Mad Men's use of music continues to provide the DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix with its most reliably consistent use of the surround channels, but there's good attention paid to both ambient environmental effects, whether those be in the hustle and bustle of an urban locale or simply something like a crowded boardroom, and even dialogue. Fidelity is excellent and there are no problems of any kind to address in this review.

Mad Men: The Final Season, Part 1 Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Audio Commentaries (evidently fan discontent does make a difference) include:

  Time Zones with Matthew Weiner, Janie Bryant and Scott Hornbacher

  A Day's Work with Matthew Weiner, Michael Uppendahl and Jonathan Igla

  Field Trip with Matthew Weiner, Heather Jeng Bladt, Carrie Audino and Laura Schiff

  The Monolith with Matthew Weiner, Erin Levy and Dan Bishop

  The Runaways with Matthew Weiner and Chris Manley

  The Strategy with Matthew Weiner, Semi Chellas and Phil Abraham

  Waterloo with Matthew Weiner, David Carbonara and Chris Gay

• Technology: 1969 (1080p) is an image gallery with informative text about some of the "high tech" gadgets from back in the day. Props to my hometown company of Intel, which gets a nice mention.


• Gay Rights (1080p; 23:47) is a really interesting piece on the sea change which began in the late sixties. Since I gave props in the last description, demerits are now handed out to my hometown (Portland) for evidently having been the first place the word "faggot" was published.


• The Best Things in Life are Free (1080p; 7:51) is a nice tribute to Robert Morse.


• Gay Power (1080p; 21:44) is a companion piece to Gay Rights. At least it wasn't a Portland paper with the headline proclaiming "Homsexuality Baffles Science."


• The Trial of the Chicago 8: Part 1 (1080p; 17:26) is another really fine piece on the social unrest that was part of this era and how the Chicago 8 personified that zeitgeist.


• The Trial of the Chicago 8: Part 2 (1080p; 36:10) continues with the story, including more biographical information on the eight activists.

Mad Men: The Final Season, Part 1 Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Maybe it's the ennui engendered by the thought of Mad Men finally going off the air, but this season has a just slightly anemic quality at times. That said, the huge cast of characters continues to surprise with various skirmishes and denouements, and as always the show's production design is a complete knockout. Don may never figure out who he "really" is, and therefore hopes for a catharsis on the part of the show's rabid viewership may be a fool's errand, but watching him attempt to, well, "rebrand" himself still provides one of the most singular experiences in contemporary television. Once again, technical merits are very strong and this Blu-ray release laudably includes the kind of excellent supplements that fans had come to expect after the first few seasons. Highly recommended.