Charlie Rose

JBG  08/10/2012 06:55 PM Report

I finally got around to watching this episode, and the first thing I thought was what the heck is Gayle King doing here? I have listened to her on the radio and been curious about her seemingly unearned notoriety for the last few years. Aside from her uncanny ability to leverage her lasting friendships with powerful people, I fail to see what value she brings to the conversation, including to this show. I was pleasantly surprised to see that others here share my sentiments. I concluded a few things during this program: 1) I can not stand Gayle King's persona and as soon as I ever see her again anywhere I will immediately switch her OFF; (2) Charlie sadly neglected to question the women on the show -- WHY???; (3) Matthew Weiner and John Hamm are amazingly talented, brilliant artists. Thank you for Madmen and for Charlie Rose.

Saultxyca  05/04/2012 04:50 AM Report

Gayle King was evidently there to announce to the world that she is "in love with love as Charlie knows." People seem to have missed that, though all of the Mad Men principals looked at each other and at Gayle King furtively. Gayle's spanner disrupted the ambience and flow by drawing ridiculous attention to herself. Really gross; I switched off there and made better use of my time, though it took another 20 minutes to get out of cringe mode.

katpower  04/26/2012 05:38 PM Report

As much as I understand other commenters' frustration with the fact that most guests were given little chance to talk, I have to say that from watching other recent Mad Men cast panels (like the one the NY Times did right about the same time) it was pretty obvious that Matthew Weiner and Jon Hamm are the two people who have the most insightful and interesting things to say about the series. OMG, Weiner can be brilliant.

Secondly, even though I agree that Gayle King's presence is not entirely justified, I don't think she intervenes that much. People's comments suggest that she somehow dumbs down the conversation. Seriously? With all due respect to Charlie Rose, it's not like his questions here are very deep either. (I mean, "Where's your character, Pete?"????)

bigfanhere  04/20/2012 09:16 PM Report

Seems I may be the only person commenting positively about Gayle King's participation. I'd actually like to see her have her own interview show with this format - no live audience. I'd watch it. Her questions were a nice addition to Charlie's somewhat safe and predictable (albeit good) questions.

I think the guests were wonderful, of course. I do wish all them would have participated more. I like Jon Hamm, but have heard him share a lot in other interviews already.

More questions directed to the other cast members would have been a welcomed change from interviews done by other hosts.

chawlydollydoodah  04/14/2012 01:04 PM Report

Why must Hollywood television always continue to torture us. It's like, if you want to see the most beautiful women in the world, you have to watch this 'Stupid Show'.

It's always the same Crap dressed up in a different package. Although I must admit an affinity to Ivanka Trump's 'Celebrity Apprentice' show. It's very interesting, with Ivanka not saying very much, but looking sexy as hell. The way it should be. The Donald can brag about that, but he'll still always be 'America's Grand Ole Horses's Ass'.

...everytime he opens his mouth

blankspace  04/10/2012 08:20 PM Report

With all due respect to Ms. King, this show has never been a place to showcase fawning interlopers. It's almost like Charlie lost a bet on The Early Show. I've watched Charlie Rose for years and have never seen such an unsatisfying interview marked by inane interjections by a "participant" so totally out-of-place, with no substantial reason for stealing any of the 53 minutes from the discourse. The cringe-worthy question regarding having more major African-American characters written in to the show - good grief!

Anyone who has watched at least a full season of Mad Men knows that (to its credit) it clearly strives to avoid anachronism in every carefully scripted scene. One of the reasons the show is so engrossing for me is BECAUSE of its subtle side glances at topics of race, gender, and sexuality in the context of its time and place. From the early episodes of Season 1 where we find Peggy Olson trying to understand and manipulate her sexual and intellectual powers in the Sterling Cooper workplace, women are depicted in a pitched battle on a male playing field. Now, on cue, the opening episodes of Season 5 show the gathering storm of civil unrest rising throughout America. Peggy glances nervously at her purse stuffed with cash on the table in front of Dawn Chambers, Dawn realizes why, and without any dialogue the show has ironically observed another human failure in one of its central characters with notable authenticity.

I must agree with others that much of the discussion was a Hamm/Weiner forum with only polite elbow room afforded to the other talented actors. However, that is in keeping with the structure and popularity of the show: the character of Don Draper is the enigmatic and troubled soul of late 50s/early 60s America (albeit the middle-class white perspective). It's not all that surprising that the series creator and its lead star would use up most of the oxygen.

addy8888  04/02/2012 09:30 AM Report

Charlie directed most of his comments to the men and that shows who he thinks has the most insight and the most interesting things to say as cast members. My irritation with this interview was about Charlie and that's why I turned it off. He was clearly mezmerized by the men just like the men in the 1950's were in awe of each other.

chenono  03/27/2012 10:32 PM Report

Charlie, I've been a loyal viewer for years. But please DO NOT have Gayle King on my favorite show any more. I am counting on you to protect one of the last sacred places for intellectual conversations. Thank you.

MKap  03/27/2012 01:32 PM Report

LOL Gayle King. Yes. Why was she there? Actors on the show are great. Weiner is a very, very smart man. The show of the era.

Gelles  03/27/2012 05:44 AM Report

Reading Trollope and watching BBC performances of novels brought to the small screen is, IMO, an education via fiction in the history of the English speaking world in Victorian times. The time you invest with his characters and his interpretation of our institutions is time well spent -- time that could not better spent with another writer.

Many in the audience for Matthew Weiner want their time to spent with him to also be worthwhile.

This cannot be the case with each original broadcast. Our entertainment system is so corrupt and distorted, the audience must see Weiner again without ads. And it is doubling interesting, that advertising is the institution around which Weiner has worked.

MAD MEN is soap opera. Trollope is literature. Both have a place. I imagine the day will come, and not too long in the future, when we will watch many hours of each of these author's works, and such hours will include documentary discussion of what these works mean to the education of a nation's people.

I once heard George Steiner, (a critic and artist of the highest order -- five years my junior,) say on TV how fiction and fictional characters were more real in their ways than real people. That is the problem -- or my problem:

..... We have on the Rose show Don Draper and countless real persons who struggled for success in business and at work. We in the audience spend time with the show and with stories real and imagined. Where do we find what we're looking for. What lies beyond any mirror with yourself at the very center?

Muldfeld  03/26/2012 06:12 PM Report

I see that lots of folks would like to hear more from Matthew Weiner. First, his audio commentaries on the DVD sets are fantastic. Second, the Writer's Guild has had great filmed talks with him, which you can order online.

http://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Script-4-Matthew-Weiner/dp/B003FSTVIQ/ref=sr_1_13?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&q id=1332799832&sr=1-13

http://www.amazon.com/Matthew-Weiner-Writers-Guild-Foundation/dp/B001L4L954/ref=sr_1_14?s=movies-tv&i e=UTF8&qid=1332799921&sr=1-14

Muldfeld  03/26/2012 06:03 PM Report

I loved the interview, but must emphasize my upset at Gayle King ruining what could have been a better interview. She's the typically annoying "fan" that makes for a horrible moderator for any insightful discussion on a panel; she's too clearly in love with Don Draper to have any proportionate reaction to this piece of art. I was especially irritated when she cut off the brilliant actor, Vincent Kartheiser, who was the very reason I checked out the show from his impressive work on "Angel." He portrays Don's enemy, so she couldn't sympathize with him and that really angered me. Kartheiser's a smart guy and has a lot to say and barely got a chance. Similarly with the other non-Matthew Weiner and Jon Hamm guests. Hopefully bring them back on their own so they can have their say, Charlie. Or perhaps don't invite Weiner because he's so talkative (and he's fascinating!) that there's no room for anyone else to speak.

I was happy to see January Jones express her frustration at fan hatred for her character. While I do agree there's some hypocrisy in hating Betty for the same actions in which Don engages, there's also the matter that she's become a more shallowly conveyed character since Season 3. The show's first two seasons were more sympathetic to Betty and showed the pain behind her anger and cruelty -- as the show does for most of the characters, especially Don. Yet, I get a strong feeling that, in order to keep the audience rooting for its morally ambiguous star, Matthew Weiner turned Betty into the enemy and that feels like cheap writing; for example, Don is clearly an absent father, yet we are made to think he's a much better parent simply because he spends 5 minutes a day talking gently to his children while Betty yells at them all day or threatens violence. I hope this season will return to depicting Betty as more complex or show us the reasons for her behavior the way it had before.

Sandradee  03/26/2012 05:50 PM Report

Since my last comment was deleted (as were several others to this effect), allow me to reiterate my distaste for Gayle King's ill-advised presence. Charlie: people rely on you for being the last bastion of intelligent conversation in North America. Know thy audience!

binniemoto  03/26/2012 04:27 PM Report

Gayle King's presence was annoying. I don't get annoyed with very many of Charlie's shows, but this one of those times. She got in the way and interrupted the flow what what might have otherwise been a decent show.

Gelles  03/26/2012 07:25 AM Report

MAD MEN's fifth season started last night -- on American Movie Classics channel of cable television.

I saw it on Time Warner Cable, with all the national and local ads surrounding its bits and pieces of soap action drama.

The high point was Don and Megan on the living room floor at noon, upset by pressure at work, testing the physical bonds between them.

..... He at 40 and she at 28, he a ten among men, she a 9.7 among women, offered we, the 5.0.audience, believable romance at 10 pm on a Sunday night.

The show has been popular for six years. It tells us what New York suburban life offered the world in the Cold War -- as an example of getting ahead (in business) and getting behind (the eight-ball) -- both at the same time.

The real struggle will be to find an audience more interested in stale characters than in seeing the show expire from natural causes in its now ripe old age.

Don Draper as Jon Hamm explained to Charlie Rose the

very young age of the audience -- and the great similarity between the economic anxieties of its characters and those of these youngsters under 30.

..... The similarity suggests four more years of show life.

The only way to see the show is in re-runs free of advertising (on disk or other ad-free form).

The show is about ads and those who create them to sell us what we might not buy. When it has ads, it's a double dose of one of the poisons in our life.

Much of the dialog and performance is too good to miss -- once you have the habit. But, watching it among the high power ads for cars and digitally enhanced violent fantasy squeezes the poetry out of the drama until you can see it ad-free.

My habit is about over. Unless it can skip its historical straight jacket, (its intentional form,) it will rehash how all the poisons it is spreading that are destroying Western Civilization at an accelerating rate for the half-century the straight jacket covers.

In real life the counter-force to its real poison is the hope of science, technology and education to usher in the Golden Age that would be due us -- IF -- the Golden Rule can be resuscitated.

Reform of political economy is not our animating global purpose -- greed and glitz still rule. So watching Mad Men is really asking for insult to our injury.

Am I asking to wreck this monumental satire by using pure soft soap? Probably.

..... Because using pure satire soap will not popularize reform -- or will it? Both the show and I seem to have backed ourselves into separate fatal corners.

lcleeland  03/25/2012 05:01 PM Report

I like your interviews very much, but I think it was a mistake to include Ms. King. She seemed to have a very different tenor and attitude in the interview and she kept taking over and it really was disruptive to me. It's too bad you couldn't have done this interview yourself.

Gelles  03/25/2012 02:49 AM Report

A female friend from Charlie's morning gig on CBS who is a fan of the show was asked, on impulse, to join the cast and founding writer. She spoke up. Cast members remained relatively quiet. The writer was the primary talker. Jon Hamm did fine.

A show like this diserves treatment some day that is very long and serious. Such treatment belongs in libraries available to fans and professionals alike. It ought to be made by professionals in documentaries as good as, but not actually done by, Weiner or Rose. Weiner would be used -- but as a witness not judge or jury. Rose would be in the audience -- not permitted to say a single word. He could sit next to me, out of sight and out of touch with the real ducumentary makers.

FromOnline  03/25/2012 01:29 AM Report

This was the first Charlie Rose show that I could not finish watching. Having Gayle King there made NO sense and was nothing more than bad "product placement." From her interruptions of guests to her own admission that she wasn't in the US during the era of the show (again: why exactly was she part of this discussion?), she made it very painful to watch. It seemed that certain Mad Men cast members felt exactly the same way, not the least of which was Ms. January Jones, who practically dripped with sarcastic annoyance when Gayle King misinterpreted a pivotal scene from a previous season. Jones' smugness was over the top, but it also hinted at what many were obviously thinking: what is Gayle King's relevance to this discussion? One word, Charlie Rose: OUCH.

tiffoneill  03/24/2012 08:47 PM Report

Love, love the show. But, could January Jones have been MORE smug? OMG.

gdblawyer  03/24/2012 05:37 PM Report

I too wish the women had been more engaged in the conversation. However, as a fan of the show, I enjoyed learning more about Mr Weiner's perspective.

To bonacker, I sincerely doubt Ms. King was included because she is an African-American. I think she was there because she is a true fan of the show. Were I in Ms. King's position, I too would have jumped at the opportunity to to participate in the show.

Like Ms. King, I enjoy seeing a show representing the era of my childhood. Although she was in Turkey, I was in rural California. I also enjoy comparing my memories of the era to those of Sally. (I even had/have the same Barbie -- except mine was blonde.).

addy8888  03/24/2012 10:43 AM Report

Why were any of the women there? This interview could have taken place in the 50's with all the insight the women are allowed to offer. The first 25 minutes we listen to Jon and the writer. Still a boy's club. Boring, boring, boring.

Gelles  03/24/2012 07:54 AM Report

The soap opera addiction of millions of Americans, (and other residents of Planet Earth,) is an addiction to watching or listening to stories of OTHER PEOPLE -- that allow an audience to escape from a HERE and NOW filled, perhaps, with uninviting chores, boredom or less attractive realities and rewards to our unconcious.

The promise of vicarious sexual feelings and/or reward for WINNING something (no matter how ultimately trivial,) HOOKS us -- and we come under the MAGIC SPELL of ENTERTAINMENT.

Under that spell, and in that role of FAN, we are relatively safe from the risks of being alive outside the soap opera escape.

Of course, most soap opera is grossly inferior to MAD MEN. It is written and performed by the right voices, bust lines, events and dialog to grab its audience and hold their brains in the palm of its hand.

From time to time I have been an addict. MAD MEN was me and I was them. As for talking about IT -- with producers, authors, cast, crew, interviewers and interview-ees -- that form of escape in the night is all together different. It may be OK sometimes. It's never the real thing. It's not opera. It's not much of anything, mostly, it casts no spell. It can even be too dull for words.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  03/24/2012 02:11 AM Report

We own season two on DVD and yes being historically accurate is less important than being emotionally accurate.

In the end though, this is a high end Soap Opera like the Sopranos.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  03/24/2012 02:05 AM Report

Look at Jon Hamm will you?

This is why my daughter has his picture on her wall. She is out of that Justin Bieber phase to the manly, man look.

Oh yeah, and he can act too.

SharkswithfrikingLazers  03/24/2012 02:01 AM Report

Charlie, Charlie, Charlie,

The camera caught you the night before flipping through the newspaper while talking with Charles Duhigg (on The Power of Habit) and now you bring Gayle King along from your other job.

See this is why major corporations don't allow moonlighting.

azmen  03/23/2012 09:42 PM Report

I wish you had given more time to the women to talk about their characters. Matthew Weiner barely let any one else talk, but you as the host also barely gave any time to January Jones and Christina Hendricks (also same goes for Vincent Kartheiser), this might as well have been an interview with John Hamm (whom I love) and Weiner.

And please don't ever bring Gayle King back, I absolutely love Mad Men (and your show) and her presence was completely unnecessary and quite annoying.

wamylove  03/23/2012 08:45 PM Report

Why why why is Gayle King there?! Horrible.

chrispegg  03/23/2012 06:53 PM Report

Great cast to have at the table! Mad Men is such a fascinating and well produced show.

The only problem with this inteview is the totally unexplainable presnce of Gayle King. The wheels come off every time she speaks.

Ryan-Dawson  03/23/2012 06:23 PM Report

A superbly illuminating interview, mostly because it was less concerned with plugging the new season than allowing the principal creators to explain the methods behind their collective madness. I only wish more time had been given for Weiner to speak more in depth about his writing process and the show's animating ideas. His discussions of being fascinated by the passage of time and the increasing "innocence" of the era were spellbinding. It was also quite intriguing to see how Hamm et al interpret their respective characters. Hamm's admission that he doesn't believe Don has a moral center, along with Weiner's disagreement, will provide plenty of fodder for Maddicts for some time to come.

I only wish Weiner could return for an extended discussion. The reasons this show has hit a broad cultural nerve cannot be reduced to its setting or its performers. It comes down to Weiner's intelligence, and the subtle and brilliant vision he communicates through his drama. He is reinvigorating the myth of the creation of one's identity, the allure of the American dream, the terrible disillusionment with the reality behind desires. The writing on the show is simply top notch. Just as it electrifies audiences with the feeling of witnessing cultural creation and change from its initial spark, it reminds us that we are witnessing the same magical process in the very creation of the show itself! Brilliant audacious stuff.

rosie6009  03/23/2012 05:30 PM Report

This was a very enjoyable program. And may I say, Gayle King was a delightful addition and I'm glad Charlie invited her. I also love the two of them on the Early Show!

ChasePage  03/23/2012 04:50 PM Report

Exactly. I can't begin to understand why Gayle King was there. Horribly distracting to something I really wanted to watch and enjoy.

jackieg  03/23/2012 04:46 PM Report

Interview would've been much better with a woman who lived Mad Men era. Show is so excellent I am unable to watch as I don't ever want to go back there. Show excellent, interview not so much.

jackieg  03/23/2012 04:43 PM Report

Interview would've been much better with a woman who "lived" that era. This show is so excellent that I am unable to watch it as it takes me back to that period and I DON'T want to go there ever again! As I say, this show is done too well! Interview, not so much.

REMant  03/23/2012 04:36 PM Report

Aside from wondering what it was or is, there was nothing I quickly discovered I wanted to know about it, but it did give me the idea that there is probably room for a "Viewer's Digest Condensed TV Shows" somewhere.

The 1960's, i.e., after Kennedy was shot, was a period of welfare, gratuitous war (which none of these ppl knew anything of), drugs and extreme nonsense which revealed nothing so much as the diffidence and fecklessness of a public grown soft and spendthrift in the fortunate postwar period, only surpassed by the 1970s, when cars obtained the proportions of battle cruisers, but had all the amenities of armored personnel carriers, and ppl ran around in polyester jumpsuits. Movies, television and, yes, even advertising, became increasingly vacuous, and inflation galloped on the heels of limitless govt expenditure. Of course nothing but the treatment of blacks and women is taught in classrooms today, and I can only see something of this sort as either an apology for the past decade, or, God forbid, a liberal vision of the future. Sometime in the late '80s I think, I smiled at a young woman in the college library, an older student, who grew up in this time, and we strolled out to sit on the front steps, whereupon she gushed how flattered she was by my attention and explained how much she missed the freedom of '60s. So help me, I just got up and left. I gave this 7 mins.

BTW, I don't think advertising has ever done anything except pay for egotistical media no one wants, but which, we are now taught to accept so as not to hurt anyone's feelings.

PS- What do you guys expect? King is a friend of Oprah's.

saucey  03/23/2012 04:36 PM Report

I love the show, love the professionalism of the actors, yet was really disappointed with the interview today. When I view a roundtable discussion my hope is that everyone has a chance to speak. I saw the women of Mad Men not really be invited to speak or continually get cut off while attempting to speak, as the facilitator of the discussion I saw Charlie conduct an interview primarily with the men at the table, one of the things I appreciate about Charlies show is his ability to include everyone at the table, but did not see this today.

uiowaist  03/23/2012 04:27 PM Report

Loved the interview, except for Gayle King. PLEASE never invite her back. She constantly interrupted the guests and she has no connection to the show "Mad Men."