- Christmas Comes But Once a Year (Mad Men)
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"Christmas Comes But Once a Year" Mad Men episode 
Don and Peggy watch Garner's humiliation of Roger at the Christmas party.Episode no. Season 4
Episode 2Directed by Michael Uppendahl Written by Tracy McMillan and Matthew Weiner Production code 402 Original air date August 1, 2010 Episode chronology ← Previous
"Public Relations"Next →
"The Good News"Mad Men season 4 "Christmas Comes But Once a Year" is the second episode of the fourth season of the American television drama series Mad Men, and the 41st overall episode of the series. It was written by series creator and executive producer Matthew Weiner and Tracy McMillan, and directed by Michael Uppendahl. It originally aired on the AMC channel in the United States on August 1, 2010.
The episode opens in December 1964,[1][2][3] as the newly opened advertisement agency is hosting a Christmas party. As the company faces the problems of its limited client base, Don Draper's private life becomes ever more chaotic. Critical reception of the episode was positive.
Contents
Plot
Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce are planning a scaled-down Christmas party, but when Lee Garner Jr. of the vital client Lucky Strike invites himself to the event, the company has to go all out. The evening ends up with Garner getting drunk and publicly humiliating Roger Sterling. A more hopeful occurrence is the return of a sobered-up Freddy Rumsen, who brings along a valuable new client.
Don Draper's life continues to unravel, as a female psychologist from a hired consumer research company brings to light his issues with his own past. An encounter with a young nurse from across the hallway leads nowhere, but he later ends up getting intimate with his secretary Allison, a situation which leads to awkwardness in the workplace.
Peggy Olsen is initially happy about Freddy's return, but finds working with him to be difficult, due to his dated attitudes toward advertising and toward women. She has also come to an impasse in her relationship with her boyfriend Mark. Torn between a fear of loneliness and her ambivalent feelings for Mark, she eventually agrees to sleep with him. Meanwhile, Don's daughter Sally is having problems with accepting her father's absence, especially during the Christmas season. Glen Bishop, the family's neighboring boy, has taken an unhealthy interest in Sally, and ends up vandalizing the Francis residence.
Production
The title "Christmas Comes But Once a Year" is from a 1936 animated short by the same name.[4] The episode was written by executive producer Matthew Weiner, who has written a number of episodes, and Tracy McMillan.[5] It was directed by Michael Uppendahl, who had directed three previous episodes of the series.[6] The episode also saw the return of Joel Murray in the role of Freddy Rumsen, for the first time since the season two episode "Six Month Leave".[7]
After the season premiere episode "Public Relations", series creator Matthew Weiner was displeased about the amount of disclosure that had gone before the episode, through the release of promotional clips. As a result, the amount of information revealed about the second episode was severely reduced.[8] Pond's Cold Cream, the account brought in by Rumsen, is a real-life product by Unilever. This product placement was not meant to promote Pond's itself, but was intended as a tie-in for a commercial for Dove soap, another Unilever product.[9] This commercial featured actors reminiscent of the characters from the show, and ran during a commercial break of the episode's original screening. The deal between Unilever and AMC included six different spots, for six different products, running over the course of the season[10].
Cultural references
During the Christmas party there are references to the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This piece of legislation was enacted on July 2, 1964, by the administration of Lyndon B. Johnson, who was elected president in his own right in November that year.[11] The day after the party, Don meets Roger in the office and asks, in a German accent, "Did you enjoy the Führer's birthday?" Roger replies "May he live for a thousand years," with a similar accent and a laugh. This is implied a reference to Adolf Hitler, and more specifically a reference to Hitler's 50th birthday party on April 20, 1939, which featured a military parade of unprecedented proportions intended to display Germany's military power to the world.
Reception
"Christmas Comes But Once a Year" had a total of 2.473 million viewers, and a 0.8 share of adults between 18 and 49.[12] This was a drop from the season premiere, which had a viewership of 2.918 and a 0.9 share.[13] The second episode aired directly after the premiere of AMC's third original series (after Mad Men and Breaking Bad), Rubicon, which was the station's most-watched original series premiere ever, with two million viewers.[14]
The fourth season of Mad Men opened to universal critical acclaim, gaining a score of 92 out of 100 on the review aggregation site Metacritic.[15] For the second episode of the season, reviews were somewhat more muted. James Poniewozik at Time appreciated the return of several characters that had been absent for a while, particularly Marten Weiner (who is the son of Matthew Weiner) in the role of Glen.[16] Moira Macdonald, writing for The Seattle Times found it "not an entirely satisfying episode", though she enjoyed little details, such as the subtle development of the relationship between Don and Peggy.[17] In the same vein William Bradley, writing for The Huffington Post, found that the episode was a good one, "but not one of the classics, and a step back from the season premiere." Bradley warned against reading too much into Don Draper's decline, reminding readers that Weiner "likes to toy with expectations."[18]
References
- ^ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-bradley/imad-meni-review-christma_b_669454.html
- ^ http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/whats-alan-watching/posts/mad-men-christmas-comes-but-once-a-year-holiday-spirits
- ^ http://www.cinemablend.com/television/Mad-Men-Watch-Christmas-Comes-But-Once-A-Year-26096.html
- ^ "Christmas Comes But Once a Year (1936)". Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0027446/. Retrieved 2 August 2010.
- ^ "Matthew Weiner". Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1980806/. Retrieved 2 August 2010.
- ^ "Michael Uppendahl". Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0881461/. Retrieved 2 August 2010.
- ^ "Joel Murray". Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0615063/. Retrieved 2 August 2010.
- ^ Friedman, Roger (30 July 2010). "Mad Men: Creator Clamps Down on Clips and Spoilers". Showbiz411. http://www.showbiz411.com/2010/07/30/mad-men-creator-clamps-down-on-clips-and-spoilers. Retrieved 2 August 2010.
- ^ Konrad, Alex (3 August 2010). "Mad Men: Fictional product pitches, real ads". CNN (Fortune). http://money.cnn.com/2010/08/03/news/mad_men_products.fortune/. Retrieved 4 August 2010.
- ^ Elliott, Stuart (4 August 2010). "ADVERTISING; Commercials in ‘Mad Men’ Style, Created for the Series". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/04/business/media/04adco.html?src=busln. Retrieved 4 August 2010.
- ^ Jensen, Jeff (7 August 2010). "Countdown to 'Mad Men:' What Don Draper Could Learn From History... and Hannah Montana". Entertainment Weekly. http://popwatch.ew.com/2010/08/07/countdown-to-mad-men-what-don-draper-could-learn-from-history-and-hannah-montana/. Retrieved 8 August 2010.
- ^ Seidman, Robert. "Sunday Cable Ratings: ‘The Glades Rises;’ ‘True Blood‘ Hits a 3.0 Adults 18-49 Rating & Much More". tvbythenumbers.com. http://tvbythenumbers.com/2010/08/03/sunday-cable-ratings-the-glades-rises-true-blood-hits-a-3-0-adult-18-49-rating-much-more/58982. Retrieved 3 August 2010.
- ^ Seidman, Robert. "Sunday Cable Ratings: True Blood, Entourage, The Glades, Kourtney & Khloe & More". tvbythenumbers.com. http://tvbythenumbers.com/2010/07/27/sunday-cable-ratings-true-blood-entourage-the-glades-kourtney-khloe-more/58344. Retrieved 27 July 2010.
- ^ "‘Rubicon‘ is AMC’s Highest-Rated Original Series Premiere Ever". tvbythenumbers.com. http://tvbythenumbers.com/2010/08/02/rubicon-is-amcs-highest-rated-original-series-premiere-ever/58851. Retrieved 2 August 2010.
- ^ "Mad Men reviews at Metacritic.com". Metacritic. http://www.metacritic.com/tv/shows/madmenseason4. Retrieved 2 August 2010.
- ^ Poniewozik, James (2 August 2010). "Review of Mad Men, Christmas Comes But Once a Year". Time. http://tunedin.blogs.time.com/2010/08/02/mad-men-watch-christmas-stalkings/?xid=rss-topstories. Retrieved 3 August 2010.
- ^ Macdonald, Moira (2 August 2010). "Popcorn & Prejudice: A Movie Blog". The Seattle Times. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/popcornprejudiceamovieblog/2012512935_monday_morning_mad_men_mashup.html?prmid=head_main. Retrieved 3 August 2010.
- ^ Bradley, William (3 August 2010). "Mad Men Review: "Christmas Comes But Once a Year," Except for These Three Wise Guys". The Huffington Post. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-bradley/imad-meni-review-christma_b_669454.html. Retrieved 4 August 2010.
External links
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- Mad Men episodes
- 2010 television episodes
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