Mad Men: Season 1
From Matthew Weiner, the Emmy award-winning executive producer and writer of The Sopranos, Mad Men is the ground-breaking, daring series about the glamorous and ego-driven "Golden Age" of advertising, where everyone is selling something and nothing is ever what it seems.
Set in 1960 New York, Mad Men reveals the lives of the ruthlessly competitive men and women of Madison Avenue’s "Golden Age", where key players make the art of the sell while their private lives get sold. And no one plays the game better than Don Draper (Golden Globe-winner Jon Hamm), the biggest ad man – and ladies man in the business. As Don makes the plays in the boardroom and the bedroom, he struggles to stay a step ahead of the rapidly changing times and the young executives nipping at his heels.
Member Reviews
Fantastic - Heavy
The first episode of Mad Men honestly represents the drinking, smoking, sexist fifties, a time when Madison Avenue's attitude and control permeated our entire culture, including one international political blunder after another, a time before anyone ever heard of political correctness. Gays were still in the closet, women slept their way to wherever they wanted to go, and advertising executives ruled the world. Everyone smoked because we all just looked so damn good doing it.Outstanding - DocHaywood
From the opening credits Mad Men is unlike anything you've ever seen before. It's also an incredible educational look back into an era that seems otherworldly from this perspective; with it's omnipresent cigarette smoking and drinking to unbelievable sexism and 'accepted' workplace harassment.
Beautifully shot and acted the characters, especially Jon Hamm's 'Don Draper' are fascinating and believable. You'll want to watch all of them in one evening.Madly entertaining - cinecynic
Mad Men is visually pleasing for anyone who may remember the early sixties, as the dated references are everywhere. Even for those who don't know this particular time will find the contrast to then and now entertaining.
The writers had a lot of fun inserting the dated, and now politically incorrect, references throughout this drama, which creates ironic humour for today's viewers. The first noticeable reference is the ubiquitous smoking--everyone does it, including a doctor in the examining room. Then we see the sexist attitudes towards women--not just by the men but by other women themselves (the head secretary Joan has a queen bee attitude towards the new, young assistant secretary, Peggy). The references go on from there--drinking in the office, drinking and driving, smoking and drinking while pregnant, kids not wearing seatbelts while driving, kids playing with plastic bags over their heads, serving children peanut butter sandwiches because "everyone eats those." The fun is in identifying all these amusing differences between then and now.
At the same time we have a drama centered on the ad director, Don Draper, who seems to be hiding a shadowy past as well as shady dealings as a womanizer in the present. His wife is becoming unglued, showing physical symptoms that may or may not be anxiety-driven.
Mad Men may center its focus on the men who worked in advertising on Madison Avenue, but it certainly doesn't forget the women in their world either. At the office we see newbie Peggy Fletcher who is just learning how to navigate the sexist power politics. Then there is Rachel, the woman of power who is running her father's dept. store and who seems to be falling for Don; she is in transition from that of daughter to manager, while also in transition (as many women were in the early 1960s) from being looked after to being independent.
There is much to enjoy with this series.
Member Reviews
Read All...
Fantastic - Heavy
The first episode of Mad Men honestly represents the drinking, smoking, sexist fifties, a time when Madison Avenue's attitude and control permeated our entire culture, including one international political blunder after another, a time before anyone ever heard ...Outstanding - DocHaywood
From the opening credits Mad Men is unlike anything you've ever seen before. It's also an incredible educational look back into an era that seems otherworldly from this perspective; with it's omnipresent cigarette smoking and drinking to unbelievable sexism ...Madly entertaining - cinecynic
Mad Men is visually pleasing for anyone who may remember the early sixties, as the dated references are everywhere. Even for those who don't know this particular time will find the contrast to then and now entertaining.
The writers had a lot of fun ...