If you haven’t been keeping up on the status of the upcoming fifth season of Mad Men, you’ve been missing quite a contentious story. The quick bit of good news: we will be getting a fifth season of Mad Men. Beyond that, everything is playing out a whole lot like the NFL labor dispute (another situation that is pissing me off to no end). If a bunch of really rich people want to bitch back and forth about money, and at the core that is what this appears to be, then so be it. All I ask is to keep it out of the public domain.
If only that were the case. Instead, we are fed incomplete information and rumors. I have no idea if Matthew Weiner, the brains behind Mad Men, is really holding things up, even though AMC is reportedly offering him 30 million dollars. There are “reports” and plenty of accusations being tossed about, some painting one side in a good light, some painting each in a bad light. You know what? I don’t care.
At the end of the day, the fans of this show (and if you ask Brett, there aren’t that many of us), just want more Mad Men. Yes, I would love Weiner to have everything he wants so that the show is a perfect artistic vision. Frankly, I want that for every new show that comes on the air. I also don’t want AMC to go completely bankrupt as it tries to fund a boutique program that doesn’t garner a tremendous number of viewers. Let’s face facts, Simon Cowell got an insane amount of money to be on American Idol, but the show was also raking in insane amounts of money for FOX at the time. Can Mad Men really make that claim?
I just want them to fix this. Negotiating really shouldn’t be this difficult. Instead of coming to a speedy resolution and delivering more high quality product we now have delays and bad feelings. You know who is suffering here? The fans. Now we have to wait an extra long time for a new season with the uncertainty of what the show is going to look like when it comes back. Will Weiner even be associated with the show? There are rumors being tossed around that AMC is pushing to reduce or remove two regular characters from the show. We could have a very different show when it returns.
As a rule, I hate to give in to rumors and allegations, so I’m not taking sides here. All I’m saying is this: cut the crap and get me some more Mad Men! I realize I am just a fan here, and don’t really have a say, and don’t really pay a whole lot out of my pocket for the show to be made, but the show doesn’t have enough viewers to alienate any of us.
Clacked by Bob Degon
on Mar 30, 2011 @ 11:00 EST5EDT
What I love is the claim he is pissed that AMC wants two more minutes of commercials and thus two less of show. At first I was like “Just give the guy that created your network (really without him AMC would be nothing) what he wants”, then I looked up the info. Mad Men is 47 minutes long! AMC has every right to ask for more commercials! If Weiner doesn’t like it then he can make a new show for HBO or Showtime.