Mad Men: Season Two
Special Collector’s Edition
Created by Matthew Weiner
Starring Jon Hamm, Elizabeth Moss, January Jones, Christina Hendricks, John Slattery and Vincent Kartheiser
Lionsgate Home Entertainment
Release Date: July 14, 2009

It was F. Scott Fitzgerald who once posited that the things that people are ashamed of are the things that make the best stories. Fitzgerald, had he come later and not, y’know, drank himself to death, would have been proud to have come up with Mad Men. It was last year’s Emmy winner for Best TV Drama, and if my estimation of last season’s complete and utter swill that called itself television is correct (a year that spawned a disappointing third season of Dexter, a godawful season of Weeds, and the advent of the neon storm of ass that calls itself “True Blood“), it will win again this year. They should just rename the Emmys “Let’s Throw Gold Shit at Matthew Weiner and Tina Fey for Three Hours.” “˜Cause if I’m a fan of anything, it’s honesty.

For those of you who have yet to fall head-first into Mad Men like the unbearable hipster jackass at the record store told you you should have by now, allow me to set the scene:

In the early 1960’s, Don Draper (Jon Hamm) is an advertising executive at the New York agency Sterling-Cooper. He has a lovely wife named Betty (January Jones) and two darling children and a big expensive house. Naturally, someone who has all these things should have deep problems and Don most certainly does. He’s a serial philanderer, has barely any love for his wife at all and bears a huge secret that haunts him at every turn. From season to season, Draper attempts to build up his success while his baser natures do everything they can to tear it all down.

Mad Men has gained a reputation, somewhat, as “That Show Where Everybody Smokes.” And it’s true that, in order to reflect the tenor of the middle of the twentieth century, everyone has a cigarette in his or her hand. As a smoker, no show has ever sent me into crazier nicotine fits. I go through smokes watching this show like fat children go through Tootsie Rolls.

Madmen
Season One
Starring Jon Hamm, January Jones, and John Slattery
Lionsgate Home Entertainment
Release Date: July 1, 2008

With Mad Men Season 2 underway, I given the task of reviewing the first season of Mad Men. The series is set in the 1960s at the fictional ad agency Sterling Cooper located on Madison Avenue. Focusing on the lives in and out of work of the Madison Avenue Ad Men (aka “Mad Men”), the audience gets a snap shot of just how things were way back when in the 1960s.

When I started to watch the AMC series, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of déjà vu. The series reminded me of a sixties version of Nip/Tuck. Like the F/X series, this series is populated by a series of characters, which if you knew in real life, you would completely hate.

There is Don Draper, the main “protagonist” of the series played by Jon Hamm. Don is the top dog at Sterling Cooper and while he seems like a great guy in the first episode in a sea of callous men, Draper has his share of vices and secrets. There are also his fellow co-workers, like over achiever Pete Campbell, who carries a huge chip on his shoulder, his boozy and handsy boss Roger Cooper, and his secretary Peggy, who has a small crush on Pete. Each character, while multi-faceted, are just awful human beings.