Where the Truth Lies: Mad Men Reviewed

A good television show is like a perfect storm of timing, luck, quality, talent and opportunity. So when something that succeeds is actually produced, I'm continually amazed. If you think about how rare it is for all of those variables to come together at the same time, it's a wonder how there is even one noteworthy show to watch on television.

This Summer has been a great example of how hard good television really is. John from Cincinnati sucks. Flight of the Conchords sucks. Entourage is alternating between great and sucks. Even Weeds sucks.

Mad Men however, is darn good. At times it's borderline great. At times it's average. But more often than not, the show is an outright success. It's clearly the best show I've watched all Summer, and how HBO didn't have the foresight to pick this up as the marquee replacement for The Sopranos is beyond me.

I know what you're thinking: "Wait, what the hell is Mad Men?"


Mad Men airs Thursdays on AMC. Yes, it's the same AMC that airs The Godfather every ten days or so, with commercials. It's created by Matthew Weiner, a producer and writer on The Sopranos, who worked on many of the better episodes from the last season, including writing the best Sopranos episode ever, "Luxury Lounge," which featured the following exchange between Little Carmine, Christopher and Sir Ben Kinglsey:

Little Carmine: Or we could find the next James Wan. He directed Saw.
Christopher: Did you see that? Fuckin' brutal.

It stars a cavilcade of nobodies. A who's who of who cares. Basically the only faces you'll recognize are John Slattery (that guy with the white hair who played Gaby's husband on Desperate Housewives this past year) and Rosemarie DeWitt (that girl from Standoff with Ron Livingston, which you probably never watched but surely saw countless commercials for during last year's baseball playoffs).

Hell, even the premise sounds weak: a look into the lives of the advertising men at Sterling Cooper, one of Manhattan's premiere ad agencies in 1960.

On paper, The Sopranos this is not.

So how does Mad Men succeed?

Well for one thing, the writing is spot on. Weiner and his team not only have the casual racism, anti-Semitism, sexism and infidelity of the early 60s down, they have found a way to make all of the characters, no matter how awful, seem human. It's a thin tightrope, but somehow it works to perfection. Much like The Sopranos, these characters can be both horrible and the people who you want to be friends with most at the same time.

The cast is uniformly excellent, even if you have literally never heard of them. Playing the surrogate Tony Soprano, Jon Hamm cuts the most complex character on the show as Don Draper, the hot shot creative head at Sterling Cooper. He's got a beautiful family at home, but he has no less then two affairs going on--one physical (with Rosemarie DeWitt) and one emotional (with Maggie Siff). The supporting players are all great as well, with the highlights being the aforementioned Slattery as Draper's boss and Vincent Kartheiser as the slimy guy who wants Draper's job.

You know what? Everything about Mad Men is well done, right down to the attention to detail that the sets and clothes get. This is a period piece of the highest order. There is no flashy camera work. No gimics. No "all-to-perfect" music cues. No stunt casting. Nothing. It's bare bones television. Just good old fashioned writing and acting and plotting. And it works like gangbusters. In that way, it completely reminds me of The Sopranos, which started in a simliar fashion. There are no big names here in any capacity, but if the show keeps going along as it has, big names will certainly be created from it.

My only complaint? That it doesn't air in HD. Watching it on blurry, boxed out AMC is a drag. If I wanted to watch a TV show filmed like it had a gauze pad over it, I'd just watch Rescue Me. But if you can get past that one problem, you will certainly be rewarded with a great television watching experience. I can almost guarantee that.

Look, if I had to pull an NBC and hybrid this show, I would describe it as such: The Sopranos meets Billy Wilder. If you can't get behind that, then I don't know what to tell you.

Mad Men airs Thursdays @ 10 on AMC. Set your DVR's accordingly.