Not Quite Crazy for Mad Men… Yet
Ever since Lost limped off our screens, I’ve been looking for a new drama series to get, well, lost in. I’ve tried and failed to get into a number of shows, including the unfeasible antics of Prison Break, and the uninspiring cop shows Southland and (whisper it) The Wire. Another much lauded U.S. series, Mad Men, is being repeated from the very beginning on BBC Two, with back-to-back episodes every Sunday night. The perfect opportunity, I thought, to harness the power of my Sky+ box and find a new world to escape to.
The TV world is full of glamor and beauty, with actors and actresses lining up for botox maidenhead but gritty programs such as Lost, Prison Break and Mad Men encompass an alternative world, they give a sense of escapism from the red carpet life style. The first thing I should point out is that Mad Men is really nothing at all like Lost. There’s little action, and even less mystery, and the storyline is grounded in the conflicted surroundings of an early ’60s New York ad agency. The story so far (four episodes in) is moving at a pretty glacial pace, homing in on how family life is affected by the flamboyant, glamorous world the ad men inhabit. I doubt time travel is going to come up in later series.
That said, time travel is certainly a theme for the viewer - Mad Men’s outstanding attribute lies in its direction. Beautifully shot, with accurate costumes, hairstyles and fabulous sets, it filled me with a sense of nostalgia for a time that I never even experienced. Watch one of uber-male Don Draper’s testosterone-fulled boardroom slugfests with slimy subordinate Pete Campbell, and long for the day you can be in a meeting that exciting.
I’ll certainly be watching the rest of the series, drawn in by the pitch-perfect setting, the office politics and perhaps most of all, Jon Hamm’s turn as a drinking, brooding enigma that is Don Draper. I’m not completely sold yet - the scenes in the Draper household are dragging, and the difference in values from the 60s to now is overplayed to the point that it begins to feel ponderous. I’ve still got a lot of the show to get through before Series 4 launches next month - let’s see if Draper and his band of ad men can get me sold.
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