After The Wire went off the air it felt like there was a vast hole in the television landscape. Previously, HBO produced a string of very successful, but also very acclaimed shows. In the new landscape in which television rivaled and even in some cases surpassed movies in terms of quality, originality and acclaim, HBO lead the way with The Sopranos. In the later stages of The Sopranos, the mantle of 'best show on television' passed to The Wire, which not surprisingly is what I think is the best show ever made. As The Wire was winding down its successor seemed unclear. HBO wasn't really coming out with great shows (and still isn't) and Showtime was still a little trashy (see The Tudors, Californication, Secret Diary of a Call Girl etc...) to start producing 'the best' TV. Surprisingly it was a basic cable channel, and a network known for showing movies that only 70 year olds or film buffs would want to see that would produce 'the next great show.
At first glace, Mad Men doesn't seem like it would be very interesting. The show takes place in the early 60s in a high powered ad agency on Madison Avenue. There are no cops, no gangsters, no doctors, and no smoke monsters. Really I'd be hard pressed to say what the show is 'about' beyond saying that it's about the people in this ad agency, and the lives they lead. I think Mad Men is the perfect example that what makes a show good is not what it's 'about', but is how it's written, produced and acted. A creator could have the best idea in the world, but if it's not executed well, who cares? I think that more than in movies, in TV it really doesn't matter what the subject matter is about. What matters is if there are interesting characters that we care about, and want to follow week after week.
Although in saying all this I might be selling Mad Men's content a little short. Besides having intriguing characters, the show also tries to paint a picture of early 60's America. This is an especially interesting exercise because media often paints the 60s as just existing in a drug induced haze. Depictions of this era often go straight from the idyllic and iconic images of the 50s to Woodstock. There are only glimpses of it here (the first season starts in 1960 and ends with Kennedy's election) but it seems that Mad Men will attempt to chronicle this changing society.
With all that exposition out of the way, Mad Men is pretty darn good. It's not as 'exciting' as other shows (like The Wire or Lost) but it's endlessly clever. The majority of the show consists of witty dialog and subtle body language that the actors pull off effortlessly. Like other great shows, Mad Men doesn't try to spell everything out for you, and the viewer has to gather much from context. It's not really a 'casual viewing ' show and it rewards attention.
Also, the show is even prettier than LOST. The period outfits really help, but there sure are a lot of nice looking actors in this show. John Hamm, Christina Hendricks and January Jones really lead the list here, but everyone in the show is at least interesting or good to look at. In addition, the houses and work spaces are also works of art in themselves. There aren't a lot of sets, but the creators work with what they have and create a realistic, and beautiful, recreation of early 60s America.
Often, the writers will add lines or scenes that seem to be winking at the audience. The characters are constantly drinking (even while pregnant), smoking and doing all sorts of things that we would now consider unhealthy. The show also adds lines about technology or the characters current understanding of the world, trying to goad us into chuckling at the silly people stuck in the past. This is a little gratuitous in the first couple of episodes, but gets a little more subtle as the show goes on. It's one thing to make social commentary on a way of life, but it's entirely another thing to try to make us laugh at the old people using type writers.
Furthermore, the abuse of women in this show sometimes borders on gratuitous. I know that women were treated badly during that time, especially by the rich, but there are many painful shots in this show of men laughing about a women thinking or treating them as pure objects. You have the neurotic cheated on housewives, the abused (verbally and sexually) secretaries at work, and even the 'strongest' woman character in the show is constantly undermined by her father. The triumphs for the women in this show are few and far between, and I hope they get a little more room to shine in future seasons.
Above all, I really think that Mad Men is just like a well written, period soap opera. You could make the case that a show with any kind of continuity is just a dressed up soap opera, but I think this really rings true for Mad Men. As much as the show might be an investigation into the culture of the upper crust in the 60s, the show is really just about individual people's lives. The show isn't continuity obsessed, there aren't any real cliffhangers or 'to be continued....' scenes, but the season really flows as one story. We are introduced to secret love affairs, long lost brothers, hidden pasts, scheming villains and hidden sexuality. These things are all long standing staples of the soap opera genre, and Mad Men uses them to its advantage.
Calling Mad Men a soap opera isn't to dismiss it. Nor is it to suggest that it's just a glossy soap opera like The OC. It's an extremely well written and produced show that is rightful well respected within the television world. It also just happens to share much in terms of plot and content with many day time soap operas.
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