Mad Men Carousel: The Complete Critical Companion

If you are like me, you realized that by casually binging Mad Men, you miss a lot of what the show’s creators crafted, an amazingly multifaceted world all it’s own. Mad Men Carousel lays bare all that the show hides below its surface, and after following the series through the book, I have found endless entertainment. As a companion to one of the best shows in television history, this book is comparatively the best in its genre. It has over 400 pages that consider the historical context, psychology, and storytelling of Mad Men. The book is structured around a detailed analysis of each episode, but it also includes a foreword, a preface, a timeline, footnotes, endnotes, and much more. I can’t wait to go through each episode again with the Mad Men Carousel as a guide.

I'm in the process of re-watching the series for the third time, and I wanted to dive into deeper analysis of one of my favorite shows. I've seen the amped-up soap opera reviews that seek to show admiration but never respect for what it's done for the form.Seitz's compiled reviews shine a light onto the novelization of the medium in general, where a showrunner like Weiner can explore themes and tie them together across episodes and seasons into a more profound accumulation of statements on the life and times of domestic and work life in the 1960s. The critical companion is a meticulous dive into a meticulously, obsessively crafted show that reveals complicated and conflicted characters (my grandparents' and parents' generation) as they are: unvarnished, imperfect, altogether human.I found it invaluable since I knew the broad strokes of 1960s history and references but not specific people that Roger and others tended to mention in their jokes or monologues. It holds the series to task when episodes and story arcs don't work, so you'll get the sense of it as a truly cultural document that seeks to illuminate one of the most enigmatic stories of TV's Golden Age.For fans, committed and casual, it's worth your money.

An astute, insightful, intelligent and humorous analysis of a great tv show about the human condition. If ever there was a book that cements Mad Men’s reputation as a show that will forever be praised, debated, and discussed, it’s this book about carousels.

Every episode is detailed. The arch of each character is explained. There are no loose ends.Tons of footnotes and historical references. You always have a time/date reference.Many of the episode summaries jump around so it is best that you just watched the episode before reading. Most were written as the show originally aired on AMC. This book is a good companion to the DVD set or Netflix.The actors, writers and production of the show are not written about. This is about the story. How the show came to be and any inside story is not dealt with here. No pictures.Overall, if you have invested the time to see all the episodes, maybe twice, and what to go deeper into the minds of the characters, this the book for you.

Not just a 'Remember When' collection of articles. I read a lot of recaps and reviews of my favorite tv shows. I do this for 2 reasons: 1. To relive the episode I have just seen and 2. To get another (professional?) opinion of what I just saw. Did I miss something the writers intended? A sly cultural reference perhaps? Most critics give you the former, the 'remember when' review. To paraphrase Tony Soprano, 'remember when' is the lowest form of criticism. The really good ones (like Mr. Seitz & Alan Sepinwall) give you the latter. In Mad Men Carousel Mr. Seitz gives you the latter in spades. Broken down into chapters that mirror the seasons, each chapter features a self contained discussion of each episode. The book is full of natural stopping points that make it easy to pick up/put down in a busy life, though putting it down will prove difficult. There are also copious amounts of footnotes that expound on what you are reading (the most recurring being 'The Wheel' S1E13). Other of my favorite footnotes are regarding character actors and what else they have been in. It is like when we see someone we recognize in a show and immediately our inner moviepoopshoot.com* kicks in. "Oh yeah, she was in an episode of Malcolm in the Middle."Reading this book was a great way to relive the experience of seeing the show for the first time because you were learning things about characters, development, story, and production for the first time. The book is part novelization, part analysis, and part film school textbook. The creators as well as the characters of the show are characters in the book. When I first heard of this book I had a very small idea of what it would probably be, and I was ok with that. What I got instead was a book I didn't want to put down because it allowed me to occupy space and time with these characters I care so very much about. It allowed me to get to know them better than even two viewings of the complete series had done. Unfortunately, it also meant that when I finished the book I would feel that subtle sadness and emptiness in knowing I would not be sharing any more time with them.*IMDB as seen through the eyes of Kevin Smith, writer/director/star of Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back

One of the best parts of Mad Men extends beyond the runtime of each episode: analysis. This is a show you have to watch for all the subtleties, and no one helps you uncover those subtleties like Matt Zoller Seitz.I expected the weekly recaps in print, tangible and bound next to my remote. What I didn’t expect were footnotes for the first time viewer, and endnotes for a chronic re-watcher like myself. From the review of “Smoke Gets In Your Eyes,” I can connect threads I never saw, and strengthen the ones I caught myself.If you’re a long-time fan of the show, this is an essential companion for the next time you sit down to enter the world of Mad Men. If you’ve always been a little intimidated by the show, this is a perfect guide to clear some of the smoke in your eyes.