SEASON 2 STARTS TONIGHT!!!
Set in New York City, Mad Men takes place in the 1960s at the fictional Sterling Cooper advertising agency on New York City's Madison Avenue and centers on Don Draper, a high-level advertising executive, and the people in his life in and out of the office. It also depicts the changing social mores of 1960s America.
Mad Men has received considerable critical acclaim and won two awards at the 2007 Golden Globes, for Best Television Series—Drama, and Best Actor in a Television Series—Drama for Jon Hamm. The show will have a third season airing sometime in 2009.
Mad Men depicts the society and culture of the early 1960s, highlighting cigarette smoking, drinking (alcoholic beverages), sexism, and racial bias as examples of how that era, not so long ago, was so radically different from the present.[4][5] Smoking, more common in 1960 than it is now, is featured throughout the series; almost every character can be seen smoking multiple times in the course of one episode.[4] In the pilot, representatives of Lucky Strike cigarettes come to Sterling Cooper looking for a new advertising campaign in the wake of a Reader's Digest report that smoking will lead to various health issues including lung cancer.[6] The show presents a culture where men who are engaged or married freely partake in sexual relationships with other women. The series also observes advertising as a corporate outlet for creativity for mainstream, middle-class, young, white men. The main character, Don Draper, observes at one point about Sterling-Cooper, "This place has more failed artists and intellectuals than the Third Reich."[7] Along with each of these examples, however, there are hints of the future and the radical changes of the later 1960s; Betty's anxiety, the Beats Draper discovers through Midge, even talk about how smoking is bad for health (usually dismissed or ignored). Characters also see stirrings of change in the ad industry itself, with the Volkswagen Beetle's "Think Small" ad campaign mentioned and dismissed by many at Sterling Cooper.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Men
Even if you haven't seen much of the show it's pretty easy to dive into. I actually haven't seen all of the episodes myself, but I have a pretty good idea as to the basic premise.
The characters, like many ppl in America at the time, are aboard a sinking ship of sorts; it's the early sixties (preceding the hippie movement) with the threat of Nuclear War constantly looming. The employees at Sterling Cooper are representing the Tobacco companies as well as the Nixon vs. Kennedy campaign (something that seemed like a sure bet early on), and of course you have the infidelity, alcoholism and chain smoking. Occasionally mixed in with the dialogue is a "smoker's-cough," foreshadowing their almost certain death to lung cancer.
Don Draper, the show's protagonist, is one of television's all-time greatest characters, IMO. the head of the creative team at Sterling Cooper, Don is in charge of leading his the company into the changing times of the 60's. He's a Korean War veteran, whom we find out at the end of season 1 was actually responsible for an officer's death due to his negligence. That officer's name...was Don Draper. "Dick," switched identification tags with Draper and assumed his name, cutting off contact with his family and creating a new life for himself. He received the Purple Heart and this gross mis-justice of his pal's death is something that haunts "Don". One of the weaselly up and comers in the firm discovers Don's true identity and tries to use it to extort him.
Don is a mystery man, by intent. He struggles with infidelity like most of the men in the office, but unlike some of the others he certainly has a conscious about it, and is in fact quite in love with one of his mistresses. More than once he's confided to her about his feeling of emptiness and his woeful pessimism about the world that surrounds him, and even considered running away with her during the time of his extortion. He's the one character who knows "the ship" is sinking, and we hope he'll get off in time.
His wife Betty is one of my favorite character developments on the show, but I don't see any way they'll reconcile their marriage. Don is always "working," even on holidays, as is the "custom" of many working men during this time period; send the wife and kids on vacation and stay and "work" on your mistress. Betty is a typical naive trophy-wife, the all-american "suzy-homemaker" spawned from the 50's and is unaware of the true machinations of the world, but eventually realizes Don is in fact cheating on her, and begins to have a very Tony Soprano like epiphany in life. One of the stranger scenes from a show full of them was in the season 1 finale, when Betty sees Glen--an 11 yr old neighbor who she'd baby-sat as a favor--in the passenger seat alone outside a grocery store. Glen is a strange kid, and had once asked Betty for a lock of her hair to which Betty eventually obliged him, much to the chagrin of his mother. Betty and Glen had a very close (albeit strange) connection. Glen's mom confronted Betty in public about the hair incident and Betty proceeded to slap the shit out of her.
Thus when Betty tries to speak to Glen outside a Grocery store he tells her that he's not supposed to talk to her. Betty tells him she's "so sad" and that he's the only one she can confide in, and asks him what's going to happen to her. The two clasp hands as Betty breaks into tears...and this was really the pinnacle scene of the show that blew me away, never seen anything quite like it. The actor playing Glen is actually the son of show creater, Matt Weiner.
Don is the head of the creative team, but often seeks the help of Peggy, his secretary. In the final episode of season 1, Don, on a whim of sorts, promotes her to junior copy editor. I haven't seen everything, but in the last episode the newly anointed junior copy editor goes to the doctor the day of her promotion due to stomach pains, discovering that she's about to give birth. Apparently she had been in self denial the entire time, and will naturally have to give up the baby b/c a single woman with a child in the workplace at this time in America is quite taboo, of course. We assume the baby belongs to the same douche-bag (who is married) that tried to extort Don. Things will get VERY interesting this season... =/
So, that's where season 2 begins tonight at 9 p.m Est. I haven't completed season 1 so feel free to correct my mistakes...
