MadMen (2007)

2007 · Drama · historical-period, workplace-prestige

Mad Men is the definitive American prestige drama of its era — a slow-burn, character-first portrait of the 1960s advertising world centered on the enigmatic, self-invented Don Draper (Jon Hamm). Its engine is not plot or action but the psychological depth of its characters and the meticulous recreation of a world in social flux: shifting gender roles, identity, ambition, and the seductive emptiness of success. The show rewards patient viewers with extraordinary consistency across seven seasons, functioning less like conventional television and more like a literary novel in motion. Awards recognition was massive (116 Emmy nominations), and critical consensus places it firmly in the all-time GOAT tier of American television.

From the reviewers

the characters are so interesting that there is practically no violence needed (except a few minor events) over 7 seasons to keep this series going

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

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

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

now and again, there are a few scenes with unimportant characters...that seem to be there mostly to make us feel, 'yes, I have felt this before, this is familiar to me'

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Name: MadMen
Released: 2007

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MadMen (2007)

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