Mad Men: Season One

The Pursuit of Happiness
It would be hard to imagine a more absorbingly intelligent American TV series--in terms of writing, acting, and visuals--than MAD MEN. Just before the final season of THE SOPRANOS began in late 2007, AMC presented us in the summer with the thirteen episodes of this marvelously atmospheric series created by one of the main writers of the series, Matt Weiner, that HBO insanely took a pass on. Ostensibly the series is about a group of advertising agency working for Madison Avenue advertising agency, the fictitious Sterling-Cooper, in 1960, during the Nixon-Kennedy presidential contest; yet on a deeper level the show wrestles with much larger questions about the meaning of obsession with having (and marketing) happiness in mid-20th-century America. The series centers primarily around four characters whose lives are inextricably linked with one another: Don Draper (Jon Hamm), a handsome advertising executive at Sterling-Cooper of few words but enormous creative gifts who hides a mysterious...

Immerse yourself in the tone, texture and feel of an era
Mad Men is one of those very rare TV shows that is both superb and popular. Sometimes there really is a TV god. Unlike great shows like Friday Night Lights, people are watching and the awards are rolling in - 16 Emmy nominations, more than any other drama this year.

It's 1960 in a Manhattan based advertising agency. The men have slicked back hair, crisp white shirts and perfect suits. What comes out of their mouths would get them slapped or sued if it happened today. Toots, babe, honey. Women are sex objects and they have less brain power - as one character says, "It was like watching a dog play the piano" when a certain female character with professional drive and passion exceeds the lowly expectations of the men.

The women are no better. The head secretary tells another female that they (the men) designed the technology so simple that even a woman can use it. A mother smokes and drinks while pregnant and ignores the danger of a nearby child playing make...

Glorious, involving, terrific drama; best TV in years
The summer of 2007 is when Mad Men swept the nation. Why? It is anti-politically correct. It is an intelligent, thinking man's ("persons" would be too PC for *this* show)) show for adults. Not to mention the fantastic, Rod Serling-esque realism in the quality of its writing, the direction, the scope, and the dazzling work of the previously unknown cast - now all certified household names - stars, if you will (none will ever have to worry about getting future work). The best part of this casting is that there are no familiar public-entrenched "personalities" to disturb the continuity and believability of the proceedings; a "star" would have interupted the realism of the story and surroundings. And, in the process, we get to discover a whole new set of actors (their work and camaraderie is gaspingly satisfying, the most sheerly pleasurable in recent memory).

Matthew Weiner, the show's genius creator, has painstakingly ensured that we're really getting a believable early...

Click to Editorial Reviews