Sunday Night TV : Sometimes it's hard to be a woman

Time as always speeding up, into the thick of all the seasons now - " seems we just got started and before you know it , comes the time we have to say good-bye ". But not yet - we have some wallowing to do.

CALL THE MIDWIFE

Tonight's first show is in the same year that our last show started in - whole different universe for sure, just a little bit of an odd fact. Things rolling along in the East End, nothing is going to stop those babies from popping out - ONLY here is is women helping other women, almost exclusively. " ONE MORE PUSH " , giving way to a little group sewing on of a students name tapes. How well women folk do when left to themselves... hard but bearable , what choice do they have there is dinner to get on the table and a baby to be changed, mostly men just need to get out of the way. ( or everyone in the case of our two budding lesbians, all dressed up with no place to go )

GAME OF THRONES

Uneasy lies the Queen that wears the crown. Can they will they be able to do what ever it takes to keep not only their crowns but their heads on their own shoulders. Kings landing and the Lanisters all but sitting ducks for something / someone to come and knock them off that testosterone filled iron throne. 

All but the same out east? west ? Where are hero the MOTHER of dragons is not having an easy time with things at all. Change is hard, and those changed tend to not like it - Khaleese, Daenerys Targaryen ( just wanted to type that ) is learning that lesson the very hard way . Come on girl, just let the two dragons out of the basement, call the wayward one back, rain down some hell fire from the skies and move on . But no - she wants a round of khumbaya sang by the masters and their former slaves - " can't we just all get along ". Looks like at the end of this episode, no.

Still on episode 4 out of 10 seemed to be in set up mode - everyone working towards something happening - not having it happen. That said , the pacing of this show makes the hour ZIP by. 

WOLF HALL

Ok - Henry is not really a jolly fat man at all - he is not even fat yet, but man o man did bitchy ANNE make a really poor life choice. It is just dazzling television to sit through some 16th century court politics then crash right into the business world of 1970. 400 years and it is still who you know and where you sit in the lunch room. 

The show is getting much easier to watch as you learn who folks are - and have that reinforced week after week, so if you gave up on this one early it, stick it out - and you better hurry because it is about to become very very hard for wife #2 to be anything at all .

MAD MEN

Only two episodes left and things are coming to an end fast. Sterling Cooper is literally a shell of its former self - the walls themselves coming down. After 10 years the company is no more - eaten alive ( willingly ) to the great corporate giant that America was to come. 

Don Draper the mythical beast that he is in the belly of the beast. All matching rolled up shirtsleeves taking pointless notes with the exact same pen. Here is the thing - Dick Whitman does not know to want this, the Ivy boys there at the table know that this is the life - some 9-5 then back to the wives and mistresses, golf and some sailing - it was still king of the world time for the right school types - Don could not be more of a fish out of water and did what it is he does and hit the road - Hobo Code it tact. No idea how this will end for him. McCann bought Sterling Cooper just to ad Don Drapers head to their wall full of trophies - not realizing that he did not even exist, as phony as taste great / less filling would be.

But on to the stars of the show - Peggy and Joan. What does it say about us, about me that pure sexism was quaint in the early 60's. A little slap and tickle post that three martini lunch seemed perfectly harmless - was all just fun and games in a sort of black and white tv sort of way. Joan was actually pimped out to a client - what we thought to be the nadir of her career , until she got to McCann.

To be truly powerless in the face of blatant sexism - at least she had a say so in sleeping with the car guy - she is made totally voiceless here, rage at the 1970 machine - somehow made much more real by the date. " Shouldn't we have known better by then ".
" Who said you could get pissed off " said an underling to her . No way out at all - and then to be paid 50 cent on the dollar. It all just seemed like something that could and did happen in my lifetime, unlike the early shows. Powerfull tv for sure.

Things were just as bad for Peggy - your play office is not ready so just come in and sit with the secretaries - I mean, you will be leaving the company when you find the right man anyway, so what exactly does it matter. She handled it much different that Joan did - maybe it is the age difference, could be as simple as her not getting, at least her foot in the door, with her looks - Sex was never her reason for being- she had to be smart. Joan was defeated, humiliated by the process ( not that I am not sure Mr White Knight will make the fall out very nice ) but Peggy really with much less to lose we find out in the very end - could give two shits. 

And with that the 60's come to an end on Mad Men.