Mad Men: I Want to Be All of Them

It's "Mad Men" season again, and my Woman Up colleagues and I are all aflutter about this almost self-indulgent plunge into another era.

Not to mention the characters. I want to be all of them.

I want to be Joan Holloway, with her red hair and smart clothes. I'll take a few head bumps on the glass ceiling in exchange for being the ice queen of the typing pool.

I want to be Betty in her taffeta shirtwaist dresses. All the housewives, really, since they live among real wood cabinets and rooms infused with color.

I want to be the kids, playing with dry-cleaner bags and fully capable of getting lost outside, since there are no literal or virtual leashes tethering them to their parents.

I want to be Salvatore, with his dark, secret, forbidden love.

I want to be Don Draper and Roger Sterling, as a twosome. Alone, each seems a bit pathetic, but together they're invincible.

I want to be Pete, because he amiably refuses to be the office goat. And because of his sexy tug on Peggy's ponytail in season one.

Only Peggy does not inspire me. She's a cipher -- an earnest single woman who rises in the company through her hard work and keen eye. Everyone I know is rooting for her. But to paraphrase Joe Bob Briggs, the notorious drive-in movie critic from Texas, a good film is one in which any character can die at any moment by any means.

For season three, seven of the nine writers of "Mad Men" are women. No matter what else happens this season, I'll bet my crouching-panther TV lamp that Peggy will emerge victorious.

That's a problem. When writers protect one part of a story, the whole thing falls apart. If the 1974 film "Chinatown" were made today, no doubt Faye Dunaway and Jack Nicholson would be getting a room instead of parting ways with one of the most memorable lines in movie history: "Forget it, Jake. It's Chinatown."

In season one of "Mad Men," the mysterious Don Draper was an existential anti-hero if I ever saw one. "You're born alone and you die alone and this world just drops a bunch of rules on top of you to make you forget those facts, but I never forget," he told a client.

That man seems to have disappeared. These days Don comes across more as a typical philandering husband than a tortured soul. The show seems to be edging towards soap opera territory. Et tu, "Mad Men"?

This shift might be why I'm noticing the sets and costumes more than ever. They're pitch perfect.

Despite my complaints, I remain enslaved. Maybe Joan can take up where Don left off, as sort of a brickhouse Ayn Rand. See you next week.