Mad Men Season 1

Created by Matthew Weiner, one of the chief writers on The Sopranos, Mad Men is set in 1960's Manhattan at the Sterling Cooper advertising agency where Don Draper, the creative director, is the alpha male and shining light of the agency.  In the ongoing power struggle between Accounts and Creative, Draper is king and ranks only below the philandering and had living Roger Sterling and the wonderfully eccentric Bertram Cooper in seniority, pay and respect. 
 
His home life is, on the face of it, perfect.  He has a beautiful wife, Betty, and two children who live in his fantastic house and enjoy the benefits of the good car and hired help that he is able to provide.  However, appearances can be deceiving as Don is a ladies' man and doesn't think twice about cheating on Betty whether it's with someone who he meets in the city or even a client.
 

 
Office politics is complicated and simple in equal measures: men do the thinking work and women man the telephone and typewriters with Negros manning the elevators and pushing the refreshment trolleys.  Even a Jewish woman has trouble getting respect because she both Jewish and female - that combination shouldn't belong in an advertising agency negotiating a strategy for how to improve custom at her father's department store.
 
Being 1960, the two main threads of the season are the Presidential Election, where Sterling Cooper is representing Richard Nixon and is struggling to cope with television and the photogenic appeal of John Kennedy.  The other narrative involves Peggy Olsen, who begins as Don's secretary but represents the changing position of women in the workplace by doubling her life behind a typewriter with a minor position as a copy writer, something for which she has a talent.  In the pilot she has a one night stand with Pete Campbell from Accounts on his stag night with circumstances that will lead to tension and office gossip for, oh, about nine months. 
 
I stumbled onto this by accident, volunteering to review the DVD set and, when I saw it cheap at Amazon.com (it's a Region All disc) I didn't hesitate to buy.  Mad Men is one of the finest television shows around and probably the best drama that isn't on HBO!  The winner of several Emmys, it has an outstanding ensemble cast led by Jon Hamm as Don Draper, Elisabeth Moss as Peggy Olsen and John Slattery as Roger Stirling; they are all fantastic and have such a grasp on their characters that it's impossible to think of anyone else in the roles. 
 

 
Mad Men is a show that fully embraces the aesthetic importance of making a period piece believable and everything about the mise-en-scène is stunning from the costumes to production design and set decoration - there is nothing that doesn't say 'this is 1960'. 
 
Complementing the visual aspects is the smart writing with terrific lines and real intelligence which perfectly illustrates the time and place and everything that goes with it from the place of women in the workplace to the marginal place of Negros in this environment which is completely dominated by white, heterosexual, Christian men.  Anyone outside this doesn't fit and is (more than) occasionally reminded of this.
 

 
Matthew Weiner has really created something special and has a team of immensely skilled writers, directors, actors and other crew members that combine to make this one of the finest pieces of television in recent years.

The Disc

 
Extra Features
Nearly every episode has two commentaries which is a lot for a TV show; some will have none, others a few for each season and the rest one per episode so to record two for most episodes is a rarity - each has a commentary with most having two, 26 in total.  This is not to say that they are all great - they're not.  When you have two of the crew, say the writer and director, they are well worth listening to as they have plenty of information to share and know an awful lot about what went into making the episode and there are contributions from most of the production crew and every director.  The least involving are those with two actors behind the mic as they can really only talk about their scenes so these have their fair share of dead air and are pretty dull to sit through.  Any where Matthew Weiner is involved are interesting and revealing as it's his show and he knows more about it than anyone.
 
The set also includes an fascinating featurette about how they created the Mad Men world, a really interesting piece on advertising in the 1960s and how it took off. There is a photo gallery which, for the first time I can remember, was actually worth watching as it had a commentary by members of the various art departments.  The conversation with David Carbonara is a decent look at how he went about scoring the show. 
 
Finally there is a 'Music Sampler' and a preview of season two.
 

 
The Picture
As I've already mentioned, this is a show that takes the aesthetics seriously and has directors and cinematographers who really know how to convey the era and mood through framing and lighting.  The use of mise-en-scène is very clever and is an integral part of what makes the show so good. 
 
As this is the case, a top notch high definition picture is not only desirable but almost essential and thankfully one is provided.  Everything that should be there is there and everything that should be absent is absent. 
 
*The pictures contained in this review are for illustrative purposes only and do not reflect the image quality of the disc.*
 
The Sound
A wonderfully clear DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack ensures the dialogue is presented well and the terrific score by David Carbonara perfectly fits the mode and tone of every scene. 
 

 
Final Thoughts
Although there is stiff competition from HBO with shows like The Wire, Six Feet Under and True Blood, Mad Men is right up there with the 'big boys' of the subscription channel.  Broadcast on AMC and appropriately with little in the way of expletives, violence or graphic sex, this is a slow burner of a show that drags you in and really has you when it takes off after about the fourth or fifth episode.  With HBO's big hitters nearing or at the end of their runs - only True Blood is going to return for another season - Mad Men may be the finest thing on television and, with two seasons under its belt and a third on the way - it is a brilliant bit of television that, if you haven't already seen, you should check out the DVD or Blu-ray sets to see what all the fuss is about.