Mad Men and The Twilight Zone: Kindred Spirits

I’m an unabashed Mad Men fan. I was lucky enough to be there for the first episode and, despite a few hiccups now and then, I’ve been on board ever since. It’s as smart and well-executed a TV show as I’ve seen.

Which puts it in league with the best, a group that includes near its head The Twilight Zone. As it happens, the two shows have something in common beyond brilliant creative execution.

First aired on May 6, 1960, “A Stop At Willoughby” is one of Twilight Zone’s better moments. In it, a harried advertising executive named Gart Williams (played by James Daly) bends then finally breaks under the pressures of Madison Avenue in persuasion’s golden age. The similarities to Mad Men are plain on the surface, but they run much deeper than that. 

Gart Williams is a virtual mirror image of Don Draper. He’s got the job (although Williams doesn’t work in the creative department), the train commute to the suburbs, the well-appointed home and, most importantly, a deep sense of longing.

When he cracks up during a particularly rough meeting, Williams returns home to a strong drink and a wife offering nothing in the way of sympathy. She berates him for potentially ruining his career — and her comfort. In response he offers the following:

I would prefer, though never asked before, a job, any job at all where I could be myself. Where I wouldn’t have to climb on a stage and go through a masquerade every morning at nine o’clock. And mouth all the dialogue and play the executive and make believe I’m the bright young man who’s on his way up ‘cause I’m not that person, Janey. You’ve tried to make me that person but that isn’t me. That isn’t me at all.

There are echoes of Don Draper in that monologue, but Williams is Draper without the cool. Without confidence, control, and style. His yearning is directionless. One could argue the same thing about Draper, but where Mad Men’s protagonist seeks to move forward no matter the cost, Williams’ march is relentlessly, finally, backward.

I’ll save the ending for fear of spoilers. Suffice to say he doesn’t start his own agency.

“A Stop at Willoughby” resonates for many of the same reasons as Mad Men. It’s a portrait of a time in American history when the popular narrative was contentment and success, but the reality was often more complicated. People had things but they didn’t necessarily have things that mattered. Worse, they didn’t really know what exactly would matter. If success and comfort isn’t it, then what?

That particular idea is as relevant now as it has ever been. 

“A Stop at Willoughby” is available in three parts on YouTube. Get it while you can.

Part One, Part Two, Part Three