Television Review: Waldorf Stories (Mad Men, S4x06, 2010)

Waldorf Stories (S4x06)

Airdate: 29 August 2010

Written by: Brett Johnson & Matthew Weiner
Directed by: Scott Hornbacher

Running Time: 48 minutes

At the outset of Season 4, there was a palpable sense of apprehension among even the most devoted admirers of Mad Men. The first three seasons had constituted a near-flawless run of prestige television, establishing the series as the gold standard of the medium. Yet by the summer of 2010, creator Matthew Weiner appeared, much like his protagonist Don Draper, to be a spent force creatively. The show, it seemed, risked devolving into a reliance on cheap gimmicks rather than the high production values, superb acting, and razor-sharp writing that had defined its early years. Waldorf Stories (S4E06) is a prime exhibit in this prosecution's case, an episode whose very conception was tethered to a meta-textual stunt that threatened to undermine its dramatic integrity.

The gimmick in question is impossible to ignore. The episode premiered on 29 August 2010, the very same evening as the 2010 Primetime Emmy Awards ceremony. Co-written by Weiner and Brett Johnson, Waldorf Stories revolves around an actual real life awards ceremony in the world of Mad Men, inviting an obvious and perhaps too-clever comparison between the series' own accolades and those of its characters. It was a piece of scheduling chutzpah that risked collapsing the distance between art and reality, and one that could have easily come across as self-indulgent or smug.

The awards in question are the Clio Awards, the annual honours for the advertising industry, taking place in April 1965 at the Hotel Waldorf Astoria. Don Draper is among the nominees and is expected to win for his celebrated Glo-Coat television commercial. He looks forward to the ceremony with considerable anticipation, an event to be attended by Roger, Joan, and Pete. For Don, however, this is merely another opportunity to indulge in the drinking around which, by this point in his life, nearly everything revolves. The ceremony is a stage for his public validation, but also a pretext for private dissolution.

Don does indeed win, and the victory feels good—not only for his battered self-confidence but also for the opportunity to rub it in the face of his rival, Ted Chaough. After the ceremony, he returns to the office, visibly drunk but in high spirits, to find his subordinates already in a meeting with a Life Cereal executive. What follows is a series of improvised and largely unoriginal pitches, until one of them—"the cure for the common breakfast"—lands with the client. It is a triumph, but one that creates an immediate and uncomfortable problem: the idea was not Don's own.

That idea belonged to Danny Siegel (Danny Strong). He is the cousin of Jane Siegel, Roger's young wife, and he has arrived at SCDP seeking work as a copywriter on the strength of his family connection. Don, like Peggy, is initially dismissive of him, and with good reason: Danny is clearly not particularly talented, and his presence feels like an imposition of nepotism over merit. The episode thus sets up a moral reckoning that Don is too drunk and too proud to face directly.

Meanwhile, Pete Campbell receives unwelcome news from Lane Pryce: Ken Cosgrove, a former colleague and friend whom Pete has long regarded as a rival, will be joining SCDP. Pete is deeply unhappy about this development, but he has no choice in the matter, as Ken will bring with him a number of valuable accounts from his old firm. This subplot, while competently executed, feels somewhat predictable and repetitive, revisiting familiar tensions between the two men without adding much new dimension to either character.

Peggy, for her part, has been ordered to devise a new campaign for Vicks, and she must do so with the assistance of Stan Rizzo, the new creative director played by Jay R. Ferguson. The two are sequestered over a weekend in a hotel room, tasked with finding a solution before they can leave. They do eventually find one, but not before expressing considerable hostility towards one another, and even daring each other to work naked. This subplot, too, has a certain predictability to it—the creative friction that masks mutual respect is a well-worn trope—but it is enlivened by the chemistry between the actors and the sharpness of the dialogue.

Don, following the end of the day, goes on a bender. He seduces one woman in a bar only to wake up with another, and realises with a jolt that it is Sunday, having been angrily reminded of his family commitments by Betty. When he returns to the office, he is a complete mess, suffering from a huge lapse in memory, and has to be reminded of the task he assigned to Peggy. In the end, he realises that he will have to give the job to Danny Siegel, a decision born of necessity rather than conviction.

In a parallel subplot, Roger is seen dictating what appears to be the book of his memoirs. This narrative thread is connected to a flashback set in 1953, which shows both the early romance between Roger and Joan and the first encounter between Don, then an employee of a fur coat seller, and Roger. Don aggressively tries to win a job at Sterling Cooper, but Roger is dismissive. Don, however, uses Roger's tendency to drink against him: when Roger finds Don in the office building, Don tells him that he has been hired, although Roger cannot actually remember the arrangement. This flashback is the episode's most effective structural device, using irony to juxtapose Don's dismissive attitude towards Danny Siegel with Roger's similarly dismissive attitude towards Don in 1953.

Despite its gimmicky nature, Waldorf Stories is a solid episode that benefits enormously from high production values. The period detail is impeccable, the performances are uniformly strong, and the script, while occasionally reliant on predictable subplots, employs irony with considerable cleverness. The episode may not reach the heights of the series' best instalments, but it demonstrates that even a slightly diminished Mad Men is still far more compelling than most of what passes for prestige television. It is a reminder that even when a show risks becoming a parody of itself, the craft behind it can still produce something worth watching.

RATING: 6/10 (++)

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