Mad Men

Mad Men is one of my favorite shows ever. It was one of the most talked about shows when it was on, it's the reason I started watching it. I wanted to see if the show could live up to all the hype surrounding it and it did. It surpassed my expectations in every way. It actually ended up being one of my favorite shows. The entire cast is brilliant but this is Jon Hamm's show. His character, Don Draper, is iconic. Hamm was so good that he was nominated for an Emmy for all seven seasons the show was on and even won for best male actor. The show itself was also nominated for an Emmy for best drama for all seven seasons and even won a few times. In all the show won 16 Emmys and had over 116 different nominations. I'll say that again in case you thought it was a misprint...Mad Men was nominated for 116 different Emmy awards! That alone should tell you how legendary this show is. I love it so much I plan on watching it all the way through again in the near future.

Everyone has a back burner watchlist of TV shows considered to be the greatest. These are often graced by the likes of Breaking Bad, Deadwood, The Wire, The Sopranos, and, of course, Mad Men. Even though these shows may be indeed great, you may be familiar with a weird avoidance mechanism that usually kicks in: we may regard those landmark pieces of TV not very exciting, especially if they are a few years old - not unlike "must-read" literary classics that nobody ever reads - and thus we relegate them to the bottom of our watchlists, while we consume the latest, more exciting, and often less fulfilling offers.

Then, when you finally make the effort to watch that landmark series and realize it is every bit as good as everyone said it was, you flagellate yourself thinking why you held back for so long.

This Great-TV-Show-Avoidance-Mechanism happened to me in regards to Mad Men. A show about advertising and corporate people did not seem very exciting to me, and I wasn't really a fan of anyone in the cast (save Elizabeth Olson). Having in the past started to watch best-of-all-time TV shows just to drop them along the way - I'm looking at you, The Sopranos - I kept it on the back burner for a very long time. Now, after consuming all of Mad Men in a relatively short amount of time, I think it is the most consistently good TV show I have ever watched.

Out of the 92 episodes in the entire series on IMDb, I have rated only two a 7. All the rest got a rating of either 8 or 9 (I don't believe in perfection, so 9 is as high as I go). The key word here, alongside consistency, is even-handedness. Even though there are standout episodes, usually popping out unpredictably within seasons, rather than near the end like most other shows, Mad Men's episodes are so well balanced in terms of drama, character development and plot advancement that you feel you are witnessing interesting lives go by - extremely well costumed, photographed, written and acted lives, but fictional nonetheless. Compared to most other shows, there is a refreshing under-reliance on plot twists and melodramatic acting scenes, which now seem to me like the bluntest tools in the writer's bag of tricks to keep viewers tuning in every week. Perhaps Mad Men's greatest achievement is just that: through the power of character and acting alone, it manages to capture the viewers' interest while dispensing with more traditional tricks of storytelling. Of course, other facets of the production, such as the attention to period detail, costume design and cinematography are really good too. But what stands out and keeps us watching is the near-perfect marriage between solid writing, first, and solid acting, second - acting here defined in terms of how perfectly the actors inhabit their roles, not the showy, larger-than-life, award-stealing acting scenes you find in Oscar bait films. And I tell you from experience, the binge pull of the series makes it nearly impossible to watch a single episode in a sitting. I have only been able to pull that off once, with the final episode.

The way the plot is handled is simply masterful. For instance, if a character goes on a quest to achieve something, and we spend some time witnessing the build-up to it, it is not guaranteed they will (ever) succeed, or that at least a lesson will be learned at the end of the day. Things may end up just like they are - a lot like real life. The backdrop of US history unfolding is neither overpowering, i.e., stealing attention from the characters or events at hand, or just a side note mentioned without consequence. These historically-inspired scenes excel in revealing interesting takes on people's attitudes (secretaries crying over Marilyn Monroe's death, for instance) while providing startling contrasts to our times. Another striking feature of the show I'd like to mention is that, now and again, there are a few scenes with unimportant characters - like a child doing something they ought not to do, feeling guilty, and trying to hide it afterwards - that seem to be there mostly to make us feel, "yes, I have felt this before, this is familiar to me". Those "snippets of reality," as I call them, serve no narrative purpose whatsoever and don't even advance our understanding of the characters, but they do a great deal to establish the mood and reinforce our connection to the characters, even if indirectly. By including these moments in small amounts and in the right moment, the writers are still able to keep everything on track while disregarding the common writing advice that every scene should either advance the plot or deepen character development (or better yet, both at the same time). By the way, I have rarely seen such "extraneous" scenes elsewhere, and when they do appear, they are due mostly to an editor or writer's incompetence rather than to the command of their craft.

On top of all that, the show is also a wonderfully honest piece of television. It does not promise or deliver anything more than what you see on screen. After a couple of seasons, you are likely to be able to predict to a high degree of accuracy how it is all going to end - Mad Men operates within such a well thought out "narrative system", with clearly defined bounds, that you know exactly what NOT to expect. The way the series finale begins and ends makes you feel like you are watching just another episode and, miraculously, still manages to satisfy.

In closing, I should note that Mad Men does not provide the blockbuster-y thrills of, say, Game Thrones before it became a catastrophic failure, Westworld in its first season, or Breaking Bad during the Gus Fring phase. Above all, it shows that it is entirely possible to make great, often magnificent, television without any sort of sensationalized acting, clichéd dialogue or narrative acrobatics. I have already completely forgotten Game of Thrones and don't plan on rewatching any time soon. I find it unlikely I will ever do the same to Mad Men.

The central character in this show is a deeply damaged man called Don. He has a strong survival instinct, but he's incapable of loving or even trusting. He is running scared. He compensates for his insecurity and emptiness by pursuing primal things that soothing his ego. He has to feel that he's in control, even though he's living on the edge. He tries to be the "Alpha Male" conquering all around him. In reality, he is a juggler about to drop all the balls.

The others in this show are complex human beings whose characters dictate how their lives evolve and ultimately end up.

One interesting character that you follow throughout the series is Peggy. She enters the world of advertising as a total innocent, but as the show progresses, you'll see her become a worldly and powerful business woman.

The show is full of examples of the attitudes and mindset of the 1960s. The type writer was designed "so even a woman can learn how to use it". Everybody smokes, a lot. It's ok for kids to play with plastic bags over their heads. Women are treated in a way that would surely be considered sexual harassment in today's world. These unacceptable things jump out at you and startle you, and give you a flavor of that era.

The show was a hit for a reason. It's very good!

The brilliance is all in the subtext. There are many hilarious moments that are only funny if you've been paying attention and understand where the character is coming from. There are also many tragic moments that would pass you by if you didn't know what came before. Many lines have double or even triple meanings. Watch this from the beginning, with a friend. Believe me, you will want to discuss each episode afterward to figure out some of the nuances of what happened.

The main Mad Man is the confident womanizer Don Draper, who is head of the Creative department at a mid-sized ad agency in 1960s Madison Avenue. I admit, at first I kind of hated him, but as the viewer learns more about him and his past, I learned to - not love him exactly - but like him and want to watch him endlessly. He is a complicated character who can be a very good man, but also a very bad man.

Don Draper is joined by a rich cast of supporting characters, many of whom deserve a show of their own: The ambitious young Campbell who is utterly sleazy most of the time, but has occasional moments of growth and even cuteness.Peggy Olson starts out as Draper's secretary, but her growth into a strong, confident woman mirrors what is happening for Woman in the 60's. Silver fox Stirling - he may be morally bankrupt but gets some of the best lines. I could go on . . .

The 60's clothes, hairstyles, decor, and current events provide an interesting backdrop for what is essentially a character piece. The setting provides both the occasional laugh (cigarettes being advertised as "healthy") and the more than occasional cringe (how could dumping trash from a picnic in the park right on the grass ever seem okay?!).

If you need fast-paced action or a laugh track, this definitely isn't the show for you. But, if you like character development and subtlety in your television shows, rent the first seasons on DVD and settle in. You won't regret it.

Mad Men is one of the best-written and most ambitious TV shows in some time. It is worth close study, not just for learning how to create a well-structured show but also how to write one that is truly original and potentially groundbreaking. Story world, or arena, is one of the key structural elements in any TV drama (see the TV Drama Class for how to create this element, as well as the other essential structural elements of a successful show). It is where the story takes place and it usually exists within some specific arena that not only delineates a recognizable unit but also has a set of rules, activities and values that defines the characters. One of the strengths of Mad Men is its story world. Instead of the usual arena of cops, lawyers, or doctors, Mad Men takes us into a Manhattan advertising agency in 1960. Besides being totally unique in TV, this story world is extremely detailed. And the detailing isn't simply a matter of the set design, which is fabulous. It is written into every episode. The writers weave all manner of cultural icons of the late 50s-early 60s, including TV shows, ads, and fashion. This has two great advantages. One is the pleasure of recognition. If you were a kid at that time, as I was, the show is a virtual time machine. And even if you weren't, the authenticity and texture immerse you in the world and make you feel that "You are there!" The other great advantage is that this past world tricks the audience into believing that this is how it really was back then. The first thing we notice when we see all of these details is how much the world has changed. Everybody smoked back then. The men were in charge and the women were all secretaries and housewives. That sets up the kicker. By first thinking how much we've changed, we then realize, with even more impact, all the ways we haven't. This story, set in 1960, is really about today, or more exactly, the ways that human nature only puts on a new skin and the same fundamental challenges of creating a meaningful life must be faced by each of us, every moment of every day. Another structural element that immediately jumps out at you if you want to create a TV show or write for one is the desire line. In Mad Men the desire that structures each episode is fairly nebulous, and that's probably going to cut into the show's popularity (I hope I'm wrong on this one). Desire is the main reason almost all TV shows are set in the cop, lawyer, and doctor arenas. These jobs give their shows a simple and repeatable desire line that tracks the episode every week. Catch the criminal. Win the case. Save the life. But of course this is extremely limiting. Most people don't spend their daily lives solving crimes, prosecuting bad guys, and saving lives. So while the desire line on this show may be more nebulous, it is far closer to what most Americans do in their daily lives. These Mad Men are in the business of selling, which, as Arthur Miller pointed out long ago, is the archetypal American action. But they aren't selling a particular product. They're selling desire, some image of the good life that, because it is a fabricated ideal, is always just out of reach. Writer Matthew Weiner's brilliant conception for this show is to connect the selling of desire to America to the personal and work lives of the ad men themselves. The ad men want the image of the good life in America that they are selling to be true, even if they intellectually make fun of the poor suckers out there who buy it. Main character Don Draper is handsome and talented, with a beautiful wife and two cute little kids. But he has some secrets he's keeping – like a mistress in the city – and he feels a terrible void he has no idea how to shake. Draper is a master at manipulating desire and creating facades, so when he tries to live the promise for real, the "good life" falls apart in his hands. We are in Far from Heaven and American Beauty territory here. And the second episode even had Draper give his own version of the Existentialist credo of Sartre and Camus that was seeping into pop culture during the late 50s (how's that for a sweet detail on a TV show?). We'll have to see whether Mad Men can extend beyond a few episodes without imploding. Besides the lack of a clean desire line, the subject of hollow suburban existence will make it extremely difficult for the writers to develop the show over the long term without beating a spiritually dead horse. In the meantime, I'm going to sit back and enjoy some great dramatic writing, and nowadays TV is the only place you'll find it.