Mad Men is a new original TV series airing on American Movie Classics. Created by The Sopranos writer and executive producer Matthew Weiner, the show, set in 1960, focuses on the lives of the employees of Sterling Cooper, a fictional New York advertising agency. The contrast between the behavior of Sterling Cooper’s employees and the folkways of any modern office could not be more striking: Sterling Cooper is run like a Good Old Boy’s club. Employees chain-smoke at their desks or in meetings, swill whiskey and scotch at every given opportunity (they even have Bloody Mary “eyeopeners” in the breakroom on occasion!), and treat the women in the office more like an escort service than a steno pool. What’s more, the women even seem to put up with it! The things these guys do on a normal day in 1960 could get you fired instantly in 2007.
The protagonist of the show is Don Draper (played by John Hamm). Don is the creative director of Sterling Cooper. He has the respect and admiration of most of the firm’s employees. He is frequently courted by rival firms offering him huge raises and other perks. He even has a huge house in the suburbs and two beautiful kids. In almost every way, Don appears to lead the perfect life. But Don isn’t happy. Don’s harboring a dark secret. We don’t know much about his past, and Don’s not giving us any reason why.
Like a lot of the boys at Sterling Cooper, Don is unabashedly having affairs. One was with Midge Daniels (Rosemarie DeWitt from Fox’s Standoff), a pot-smoking, beatnik-type. The other is with Rachel Menken (Maggie Siff), the owner of a department store and one of Don’s clients. What I don’t get is… why? Have you seen his wife?
What a moron! Betty Draper (played by January Jones) is, like, so much hotter than those other chicks!
Anyway, Mad Men is a great show – one of the best on TV right now. Here’s a link to AMC’s official site, and here’s a link to Wikipedia’s Mad Men page (warning: Wikipedia’s page has spoilers!). The show starts off kind of slowly, but if you can make it through the first two episodes, I promise that you’ll be hooked!
2 Replies to “What’s wrong with Don Draper?”