Mad Men: Season Three
by Matthew Weiner
List Price:
Our Price: $10.65
You Save: $19.33 (64%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $9.75 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD details
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
DVD details
Actor: Christina Hendricks, Elisabeth Moss, January Jones, Jon Hamm, Vincent KartheiserDirector: Matthew Weiner
Brand: Lions Gate
Writer: Robin Veith
Writer: Christopher Manley
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language)
Format: AC-3, Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 611 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2010-03-23
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Lionsgate Home Entertainment
Product features:
- Condition: New
- Format: DVD
- AC-3; Box set; Closed-captioned; Color; Dolby; DVD; Subtitled; Widescreen; NTSC
DVD Reviews of Mad Men: Season Three
DVD Review: The Show is at a crosswords, will it make it?
Summary: 4 Stars
I have been watching the dvds of the first 3 seasons of Mad Men for several months and have come to the conclusion that I have no idea where the producer, Matthew Weiner, and his writing team are headed. This is part of the reason that I am so addicted to the series, I never know what will happen next. It's a good thing to keep the audience on its toes in this way because the writing and plot lines are often preposterous to the point of dada-istic. I don't think Weiner is that clever and that the improbability of the circumstances these characters operate within are actually the result of some faulty original thinking when the show was conceived. Much of what goes down here for believable plot points would not get a passing grade at the American Film Institute screen-writers course.
The most glaring howler, to my mind, is the situation with the hero, Don Draper, played like a replicant Ken doll by Jon Hamm, a man of extraordinary handsomeness, in a bland kind of way, who can't act for beans (yet the awards continue to shower down upon him). Don Draper is actually one Dick Whitman who stole the identity of the real Donald Draper when the latter was killed in the Korean war. Dick survived, switched dog tags and went home as Don Draper. Whoever he is Draper/Whitman is a cad, a jerk and a phony, and, with Hamm's annoying, gravelly voice and pseudo-seductive delivery, the lowest order of lounge lizard.
So this basic flawed premise of the series has to be swallowed whole and then forgotten or the show is a non-starter. The other great gaff is poor old Peggy Olson, getting pregnant on her first day at work at Sterling Cooper on Madison Avenue, gradually getting porkier and porkier as Season One unfolds and ending up going to the ER with a stomachache and, shazaam, giving birth to a 9 lb. baby boy. We are to believe that an intelligent working woman in Manhattan in 1961 had absolutely no idea that she was pregnant until the blessed event occurs.
Matthew Weiner and his team must think all goyim, especially Catholic goyim (like Peggy), are so stupid and naïve that this sort of thing could possibly happen. Maybe in some Dogpatch somewhere but even that is pushing the limits of credulity.
Otherwise I must conclude that Weiner is delusional about his greatness and can't objectively assess and reject his bad ideas?
Whatever the case Mad Men is addictive because of the characters, the sets, the props, the costumes and make-up and the splendid original music by David Carbonara, intermixed with popular songs from the 1960s. No one watches television for the brilliant dialogue anyway. Weiner ultimately gets a pass because he has shown that he is quite willing to jettison characters who have lost their way, as he does at the end of Season Three when he dumps almost the entire staff of the original Sterling Cooper and several prominent characters. I was very glad to see the end of the obnoxious Paul Kinsey who served no other purpose in the series than to pout and puff himself up.
I'd also love to see Weiner ease out the horrid Betty Draper, played by the empty-headed, ice-queen January Jones. So she looks like Grace Kelly, is that why they hired her for this crucial role? She is a horrible actress and is incapable of pronouncing contractions like 'wouldn't', 'shouldn't', 'couldn't' and ,didn't'. In her mouth these words come out invariably as 'wuhnt', 'shuhnt', 'cuhnt' and 'dint'. No one talked like that until recently and most of those people simply can't communicate beyond the constant use of text-messaging. Jones should be written out of the show as soon as possible. Her character is awful enough without having to listen to her terrible delivery of the lines. Ms Jones is the other bad actor in this show who is receiving lots of accolades for her work.
The irony is that most of the rest of the cast is brilliant. The others manage to make Jon Hamm look good so he can stay, but no one can save Jones from herself.
The best acting comes from Elisabeth Moss (Peggy Olson) and Vincent Kartheiser (Peter Campbell). There is also the ab-fab Christina Hendricks as Joan Holloway-Harris. Her rendition of 'C'est magnifique!' accompanying herself on her red accordion is one of the highlights of the entire series so far. Those three deserve awards, not the pretty faced empty-heads at the top of the cast list. How can a show survive with such weak leads? It's just another fascinating conundrum that keeps me watching. Will Don Draper survive? The show could certainly go on without him. Sometimes I wish it would.
I am heartily sick and tired of his goat-like sex-drive. The way he's going I'm afraid he's going to end up in his own private Lost Weekend when the potential for far more interesting avenues is open to his character.
Weiner makes a big deal out of Ayn Rand's great novel Atlas Shrugged. If he really understands that masterful science-fiction/philosophic book he'd be making much more interesting situations for these characters. As it is Weiner seems content to simply show us how selfish, greedy, bitchy, drunken, bigoted and cruel business people were (are), which puts this show into the huge pile of television shows that live and die by political correctness and ignorance of the facts of history. If this is the way it's going to go it will be a pity and the show won't go past Season Five. Season Four seems to be doing well but only the die-hard fanatics are reporting in so far.
Suggestions:
Let Betty run off with her new ghastly husband, the vile political lawyer, Henry. Good riddance, but let Don keep those two marvelous kids, Sally and Bobby, played with humorous aplomb and startling naturalness by Kiernan Shipka and Jared S. Gilmore.
One last plea, to the sound man. Please resist the temptation to put the microphones down the actors' throats, especially when they are snogging in bed. The disgusting slurping and smacking is so loud that all ambient noise, like Evenrude-powered window-unit air-conditioners, passing diesel locomotives and New York traffic jams, is drowned out by smacking lips and over-extended panting, like Don's just run the one minute mile or something. I'm glad middle-aged people have sex but these miking policies would make it difficult to sit through the sexual antics of the most nubile studs and lasses Hollywood could offer up.
I hope Mad Men gets better. Season One hadn't found itself yet. Season Two hit a nice stride except for the Betty Draper side lines which always slowed the shows down. Season Three was hobbled by a particularly obnoxious trollop named Suzanne Farrell, a neurotic school teacher and aboriginal hippie in the making. Don falls for her hillbilly ways, because he's a hillbilly, remember. Far too much celluloid was wasted on their affair and it went piffle at the end, contributing little or nothing to the whole.
The last two episodes of Season Three were superb, aside from January Jones. Even Jon Hamm improved with the better scripts, not to mention the direction of Barbet Schroeder in the next to last episode that involved the assassination of JFK. The best scripts are all centered around huge traumatic social events, like the Nixon/Kennedy election, JFK assassination and the Cuban Missile Crisis, a terrifying period of time that I remember vividly; I was about Sally Draper's age at the time. Oh, that reminds me. Weiner, lose your kid from the series. Little Glenn Bishop (played by Martin Weiner) is the creepiest little bedbug I've ever encountered in a television show. Pugsly Addams has nothing on this bizarre child.
Mad Men is grand soap opera, like Dallas and Dynasty, but hyper realistic in an alternative universe sort-of-way. So I am content to continue watching faithfully to the bitter end just in the hopes of hearing Christina Hendricks play her accordion again. C'est magnifique!
Description of Mad Men: Season Three
Returning for its third season, the two-time Golden Globe®-winning series for Best TV Drama bursts with one scandalous surprise after another. Jon Hamm and the rest of the award-winning ensemble continue to captivate us as they contend with a world on the brink. Welcome to ?Mad Men? - a shocking portrait of a time that was anything but innocent. Nothing is as sexy. Nothing is as provocative. Nothing is as it seems. ?Mad Men": Where the Truth Lies.Bestsellers in DVD
![The Story of Jeremiah [VHS] Image](/images/noimg.gif)
The Story of Jeremiah [VHS]Vision Video; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Wresting With God [VHS]by Vision Video
Vision Video; Published: 1990-10-01; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Price in other shops:
Study Bible Video with Workbook [VHS]Spring Arbor Distributors; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $7.95
Price in other shops:
Tempo:Childrens TV Favourites Video [VHS]HarperCollins Audio; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $9.17
Price in other shops:
Tempo.Herbs:Parseley'Sb/ Party Video [VHS]HarperCollins Audio; VHS Tape; VHS Video
![Strike the Original Match [VHS] Image](/images/Strike-the-Original-Match-VHS-0001374079-X.jpg)
Strike the Original Match [VHS]New Liberty Films; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Price in other shops:
![Medjugorje The Miracles and the Message [VHS] Image](/images/Medjugorje-The-Miracles-and-the-Message-VHS-0001373293-X.jpg)
Medjugorje The Miracles and the Message [VHS]JPN Film Production; Release date: 1995-12-15; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Best price: $29.99
Mayo Clinic Echocardiography Review Course for Boards and Recertification DVD 2008by Mayo
DVD
Price in other shops:
Pediatric Diagnostic Imaging DVD: Single Userby Oakstone
DVD
Price in other shops:
Cost Accounting [VHS]by Charles T. Horngren, George Foster, Srikant M. Datar, Howard Teall
Pearson Canada, Toronto; VHS Tape; VHS Video
Similar DVDs, VHS Video, Audio CDs
The Unofficial Mad Men Cookbook: Inside the Kitchens, Bars, and Restaurants of Mad Menby Judy Gelman, Peter Zheutlin
Smart Pop; Published: 2011-11-29; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.03
Price in other shops:
Breaking Bad: The Complete Third SeasonSony; Release date: 2011-06-07; DVD
Best price: $16.72
Price in other shops:
Boardwalk Empire: The Complete First SeasonRelease date: 2012-01-10; DVD
Best price: $20.17
Price in other shops:
Breaking Bad: The Complete Second SeasonSony; Release date: 2010-03-16; DVD
Best price: $12.48
Price in other shops:
Breaking Bad - The Complete First SeasonSony; Release date: 2009-02-24; DVD
Best price: $11.23
Price in other shops:
Mad Men Season 1Release date: 2011-09-24; Amazon Instant Video; TV Series Season Video on Demand
Best price: $16.99
Mad Men Season 2Release date: 2011-12-05; Amazon Instant Video; TV Series Season Video on Demand
Best price: $15.49
Mad Men: Season OneLions Gate; Release date: 2008-07-01; DVD
Best price: $14.43
Price in other shops:
Mad Men: Season FourLGF; Release date: 2011-03-29; DVD
Best price: $16.65
Price in other shops:
Mad Men: Season TwoLions Gate; Release date: 2009-07-14; Published: 2009-07-01; DVD
Best price: $12.90
Price in other shops: