Mad Men
Channel: SBS
Day and time*: Thursday, 8.30 p.m.
Watch full episodes of Mad Men on the SBS website.(*as at May 2009)
Boys will be men
Although the 1950s
and early 1960s may have been a time of social and political regression
and unbridled economic optimism, you have to admit, they had class. For
all the Happy Days pastiches, these were the days of Jackson
Pollock, Miles Davis, Jack Kerouac, Simone de Beauvoir, Rebel Without
a Cause and Waiting for Godot. It's that kind of cool sensibility
that permeates Mad Men, now showing on SBS.
This classy
US series had something of a chequered history in Australia. It was originally
picked up by Nine who (typically for a free-to-air network) couldn't decide
how to handle it, and it ended up in the badlands of late night television.
Then it went across to pay TV's Movie Extra channel, where it found a
more appreciative audience. Now it's back on FTA thanks to SBS. The one-time
'ethnic' broadcaster has taken up the cudgels for some quality American
series of recent times, notably Big Love - and kudos to them
for it.
The title Mad Men comes from the show's setting in the 'golden
era' of advertising agencies, which lined New York's Madison Avenue. Since
the (invariably male) employees of these agencies were 'ad men' who worked
on 'Madison', it was only logical to merge the two to form 'mad men' -
a term of both endearment and disparagement at the same time.
The chief 'Mad man' of the series is Don Draper (Jon Hamm). Don is a creative
director at the Sterling Cooper agency. He's a returned veteran, having
served in Korea and is apparently living the dream. He's married to the
beautiful Betty (January Jones) and has two children and a house in the
suburbs. But appearances can be deceiving; and there's far more to Don
than meets the eye. For one thing, he's having a "city affair"
with the free-spirited Midge Daniels (Rosemarie DeWitt). But when the
chips are down and the agency needs a great idea, Don is the man they
turn to. Meanwhile, Don tries to keep himself above the somewhat frenetic
interactions of the office; where type-A males strut about smoking, drinking
and chasing the female staff. One of these is the naive - but quick learning
- Peggy Olson (Elizabeth Moss), who soon discovers how to turn the attentions
of the likes of ad exec Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) to her own
advantage.
What oozes from every digitised pore of Mad Men is class. From
the stylish opening credits to the excellently written script to the fine
performances, this is a show for the discerning viewer. Occasionally the
connections between the characters become a bit hazy, but it doesn't take
long to pick them up again.
The script tends to highlight particular aspects of life at the time -
sexism, anti-Semitism, smoking, mental illness, infidelity, racism, and
the list goes on. Of course these are still issues today, so the relevance
is immediately apparent. A mark of the quality of the scriptwriting is
that for all its dealing with these, it never comes across as forced or
preachy. One thing they get right is the 'battle of the sexes' interaction
between men and women. Just how historically accurate it is may be debatable;
but it certainly pushes some pretty sensitive buttons.
It's a joy to see a quality production like this at a reasonable hour.
The great indictment of Australian television is that these types of shows
either never see the light of day here; or if they do, it's in some God-forsaken
time-slot. So three cheers for SBS for providing frazzled and frustrated
viewers with at least a modicum of redress in Mad Men.
Phil James
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