One word to describe today’s television viewer: fickle. Many shows are canceled after one or two episodes. Perhaps this is the reason why the quality of new shows is so poor big name stars are not the draw they used to be and the top-three networks are experiencing declining numbers every year. Lucky for us, cable networks are producing excellent, entertaining, and endearing shows. My latest addiction … AMC’s Mad Men.The setting is a highly successful ad agency, Sterling Coopers, located on New York’s Madison Avenue. The twist? It’s 1960s and boy is it a different world. Drinking on the job, flirting with coworkers, harassment, sexism is not only allowed, it’s par for the course. The show focuses on the mysterious Don Draper (John Hamm) a picture-perfect debonair Creative Director who seems to have everything. But appearances can be deceiving.
Hamm’s blessed with an amazing cast of supporting actors, who transform the show into a realistic office politics drama. You will feel for each character and become engrossed in their struggles and successes. The first season introduced the characters, set the scene and familiarized audiences with everyday life at Sterling Coopers. Season two showed us that although men may dominate the workplace in the 60s, but behind every great man there’s an even greater woman. Season three showed us that there is no true security and everything you know can change in an instant. In the first episode of Mad Men, we knew who the power players were. The stage was set early on. Each episode was a battlefield: the bit players fought for success and recognition. The stage was set early. The question was who would succeed and who would be left behind. By the final episode we learned who would join the ranks of the elite and who would fall short. Season four promises to be an entirely new playing field.
I’m going to relish season four’s fight to maintain the spoils of war. The campaigns are going to be bigger than ever and I for one support Team Draper.
