Mad Men - Complete Season 1 [DVD]

This series almost, but not quite, lives up to the hype. The sets and costumes are terrific, and the subtle psychological tension gets more and more gripping as the series progresses.

Best of all is the acting: it is uniformly superb, but Jon Hamm and Vincent Kartheiser must be singled out for the exceptional depth of their portrayals, and their marvellous timing.

If anything lets "Mad Men" down, it's the heavy-handedness of some of the writing. The "it was a man's world" message is laid on with a trowel; I'm not convinced, for example, that it really was unthinkable in 1960 for a housewife to answer the telephone rather than her husband. Also, the "pointers" for characters' motivation are sometimes contrived; notably in the case of the art director Salvatore Romano, virtually whose every utterance "hints" at certain repressed desires, as though they weren't obvious from Bryan Batt's (it must be said excellent) acting.

The writing is weakest when it tries too hard to be ironic, and strongest when it addresses in sympathy the characters' secret demons and desires. The main storyline, concerning the protagonist Don Draper's mysterious past, while it may be melodramatic, is none the less moving for it.

It's not quite perfect, but this is quality TV that has the same underlying seriousness and intelligence that the best British drama (e.g. that of Dennis Potter and Alan Bleasdale) had until the mid-1990s.

Buried away on BBC 4 & the midnight slot on BBC 2 it's little wonder that no one's seen this show. I was lucky enough to read a review and started to catch it from Episode 3 and I'm so glad I did. The show is brilliant. Set in a 1960's New York Ad Agency it deals with the life of the ad men, their wives, mistresses and their secretaries. The writing is so sharp you'll cut yourself, the research and detail is faultless, it's slick, cool and gripping. Each episode is a gem in it's own right, like little mini Hitchcock films, the style and look is very Rear Window. Even the open credits are a work of art and a tribute to the great Saul Bass.

Although set in the 60's it easy to relate to the men & women in the show, times have changed a lot, the men all smoke & drink in the office and think nothing of making a sexist remark to their P.A. Now these things don't get said in front of women in the office anymore, but they are still thought and said behind closed doors, so the issues they create are still very much in the work place. They just said it out loud in the 60's.

The ad men are hard driven and determined to be top dog at work and find it difficult to transfer their work personalities to home where they suddenly have to take off the suit and attend kids birthday parties or paint the fence. The wives are complex people stuck in their domesticated perfect wife routines, slowly being driven crazy by suppressing their personalities.

It's pure class all the way, forget Desperate Housewives and get watching Mad Men, it's the best thing on TV for years.

Incredibly well researched, this is a beautiful drama bubbling with a tension which really captures the era. Mad Men is overwhelmingly uncomfortable to watch for those of us who were brought up in an age defined by both political correctness and economic change - not only is this a chauvinistic, homophobic world defined by men, it is a world of capitalism, consumerism and greed. And yet it is exactly this which makes this so watchable.

The series revolves around an ad agency on Madison Avenue in the 60s, and its strength lies in the slow building of the characters who inhabit this shady world of cigarette sales and illicit office liasons. The central tenet of the series is office politics as the "Mad Men" vie for advertising sales of products which define the 60s,ranging from the first disposable diapers to the carousel slide projector. Set against a backdrop of an America on the edge, we are treated to original footage from, for example, the Kennedy/Nixon election campaign. We are left in no doubt that this is an accurate portrayal of a world which now seems so out of touch: where smoking and drinking to excess in the office is normal, where women are objectified and dismissed (pre 60s feminism at its most disquieting), where the billboard presentation of a sinister American Dream shaped by mass production is as much a facade as that presented by many of the characters to their nearest and dearest on a daily basis.

And it is this which keeps you hooked: there is a gripping sense of something disturbing lying just under the surface - as it does with so many of its characters- and we are never very sure when the explosion will happen. It is very real, very unsettling and above all, a harsh reminder that we have a long way to go before we can really leave behind the legacies of this era.

Ever since I completed all 5 seasons of the brilliant TV Series 'The Wire' I have been looking to fill the gap.
I was recommended 'Mad Men' and I can safely say that my hunger for quality TV has been sated.
Mad Men is a world, (and time) apart from the no-frills look & feel of The Wire, but it is no less addictive. Each episode is like a drip-feed of entertainment that transports you to a time and place I have never been yet can somehow relate to.
You are left wanting more of the intelligent, thought provoking screenplay and cinematic visuals.
It holds a mirror up to society today and I ask myself if things really have moved on...