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*'''[[Betty Draper|Elizabeth "Betty" Draper]]''' ([[January Jones]]): Don Draper's wife and mother of their two children, Sally and Bobby. Prior to marrying Don, Betty had been a professional model. However, she has since become, on the surface, the very model of a 1950s homemaker, staying at home and minding the children while Don goes to work and comes back at odd hours. In the first season, her relationship with Don is rather distant, manifesting itself in tremors and other psychosomatic disturbances that eventually cause Don to set up sessions for her with a therapist. In season two, Betty is a much stronger person; she takes up horseback riding and frequently clashes with Don over matters of parenting. When she discovers his affairs, she tells him not to come home. Following a brief separation, Betty allows Don to return home after discovering she is pregnant with their third child, but not before picking up an anonymous man in a bar and having sex with him on a bathroom longue in the men's room in the same bar. Jones described her character as "lost [...] She’s supposed to be this perfect Grace Kelly wife of a businessman, and it’s just not going the way she imagined."<ref name="witchel"/>
*'''[[Betty Draper|Elizabeth "Betty" Draper]]''' ([[January Jones]]): Don Draper's wife and mother of their two children, Sally and Bobby. Prior to marrying Don, Betty had been a professional model. However, she has since become, on the surface, the very model of a 1950s homemaker, staying at home and minding the children while Don goes to work and comes back at odd hours. In the first season, her relationship with Don is rather distant, manifesting itself in tremors and other psychosomatic disturbances that eventually cause Don to set up sessions for her with a therapist. In season two, Betty is a much stronger person; she takes up horseback riding and frequently clashes with Don over matters of parenting. When she discovers his affairs, she tells him not to come home. Following a brief separation, Betty allows Don to return home after discovering she is pregnant with their third child, but not before picking up an anonymous man in a bar and having sex with him on a bathroom longue in the men's room in the same bar. Jones described her character as "lost [...] She’s supposed to be this perfect Grace Kelly wife of a businessman, and it’s just not going the way she imagined."<ref name="witchel"/>
*'''[[Joan Holloway]]''' ([[Christina Hendricks]]): an office manager at Sterling Cooper. She is also the head of the secretarial pool, and acts as a professional and social mentor to the office's secretaries. Joan embodies the voluptuous role of [[femme fatale]]. She had a long-term affair with Roger Sterling until his two heart attacks caused him to abandon his adulterous behavior. Joan recognizes that she lives in a man's world, and accepts her socially proscribed role as a woman within such a world. Joan briefly assisted Harry Crane when he needed help with proofing TV scripts, a role which she relished but one that her jealous and controlling fiancé opposed. Harry eventually hired a man to read the scripts, a move that greatly disappointed Joan but one that she, as a woman in a man's world, did not oppose. Joan's relationship with her doctor fiancé is frequently punctuated by ugly possessive moments.
*'''[[Joan Holloway]]''' ([[Christina Hendricks]]): an office manager at Sterling Cooper. She is also the head of the secretarial pool, and acts as a professional and social mentor to the office's secretaries. Joan embodies the voluptuous role of [[femme fatale]]. She had a long-term affair with Roger Sterling until his two heart attacks caused him to abandon his adulterous behavior. Joan recognizes that she lives in a man's world, and accepts her socially proscribed role as a woman within such a world. Joan briefly assisted Harry Crane when he needed help with proofing TV scripts, a role which she relished but one that her jealous and controlling fiancé opposed. Harry eventually hired a man to read the scripts, a move that greatly disappointed Joan but one that she, as a woman in a man's world, did not oppose. Joan's relationship with her doctor fiancé is frequently punctuated by ugly possessive moments.
*'''Roger Sterling''' ([[John Slattery]]): one of the two senior partners of Sterling Cooper, and a good friend of Don Draper. His father founded the firm with Bertram Cooper, which explains why his name is before Cooper's. Roger was a notorious womanizer until two heart attacks changed his perspective for a while. The heart attacks did not affect his drinking habits, which remained excessive even by Sterling Cooper's standards. Despite these characteristics, he retains considerable affection from both Sterling Cooper employees (with whom he has far more contact than Bert Cooper) and his family. By 1962, Sterling has returned to work and is seen to indulge in many of his old habits. He has also left his wife, Mona, for Don's former secretary, the 20-year old Jane.
*'''Roger Sterling''' ([[John Slattery]]): one of the two senior partners of Sterling Cooper, and a good friend of Don Draper. His father founded the firm with Bertram Cooper, which explains why his name is before Cooper's. A picture in Cooper's office shows Roger as a child sitting on Cooper's knee. In the same scene showing Cooper referring to the picture calls Roger, "Peanut", indicating that theirs is a friendship or even family relationship that spans many decades. Roger was a notorious womanizer until two heart attacks changed his perspective for a while. The heart attacks did not affect his drinking habits, which remained excessive even by Sterling Cooper's standards. Despite these characteristics, he retains considerable affection from both Sterling Cooper employees (with whom he has far more contact than Bert Cooper) and his family. By 1962, Sterling has returned to work and is seen to indulge in many of his old habits. He has also left his wife, Mona, for Don's former secretary, the 20-year old Jane.


Recurring characters:
Recurring characters:

Revision as of 15:08, 8 January 2009

Mad Men
File:Madmenlogo.jpg
Mad Men logo
GenreDrama
Created byMatthew Weiner
StarringJon Hamm
Elisabeth Moss
Vincent Kartheiser
January Jones
Christina Hendricks
Bryan Batt
Michael Gladis
Aaron Staton
Rich Sommer
John Slattery
Mark Moses
Opening theme"A Beautiful Mine" (Instrumental)
by RJD2
Country of origin United States
Original languageEnglish
No. of seasons2
No. of episodes26 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producerMatthew Weiner
Production locationLos Angeles
Running timeapprox. 47 min.
Original release
NetworkUnited States AMC
ReleaseJuly 19, 2007 –
present

Mad Men is an American television drama series created by Matthew Weiner. It is broadcast in the United States and Canada on the cable network AMC, and is produced by Lionsgate Television. It premiered on July 19, 2007, and completed its second season on October 26, 2008.

Set in New York City, Mad Men takes place in the 1960s at the fictional Sterling Cooper advertising agency on New York City's Madison Avenue. The show centers on Don Draper (Jon Hamm), a high-level advertising executive, and the people in his life in and out of the office. It also depicts the changing social mores of 1960s America.

Mad Men has received wide critical acclaim, particularly for its historical authenticity and visual style, and has won numerous awards, including two Golden Globes and six Emmys. It is the second cable series to win the Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama Series and the first basic cable series to do so.

Production

Conception

Matthew Weiner wrote the pilot of Mad Men in 2000 as a spec script when he was working as a staff writer for Becker.[1][2] Television producer David Chase recruited Weiner to work as a writer on his HBO series The Sopranos after reading the pilot script in 2002.[1][3] "It was lively, and it had something new to say," Chase said. "Here was someone [Weiner] who had written a story about advertising in the 1960s, and was looking at recent American history through that prism."[3] Weiner set the pilot script aside for the next seven years – during which time neither HBO nor Showtime expressed interest in the project[1][2]—until The Sopranos was completing its final season and cable network AMC happened to be in the market for new programming.[3] "The network was looking for distinction in launching its first original series," according to AMC Networks president Ed Carroll, "and we took a bet that quality would win out over formulaic mass appeal."[1] (Carroll misspoke: AMC's first original series was the comedy-drama "Remember WENN", which ran from 1996 to 1998.) According to the first episode, the phrase "Mad Men" was a slang term coined in the fifties for advertisers working on Madison Avenue.

Filming and production design

With the exception of the pilot episode, shot at Silvercup Studios in New York City, Mad Men is filmed at Los Angeles Center Studios.[4] It has been converted to high definition for showing on AMC-HD and on video-on-demand services available from various cable affiliates.[5] The writers, including Weiner, amassed volumes of research on the period in which Mad Men takes place so as to make all aspects of the series — including detailed set designs, costume design, and props — historically accurate,[2][3][6] producing an authentic visual style that garnered critical praise.[7][8][9] Each episode has a budget between $2-2.5 million, though the pilot episode's budget was over $3 million.[1][2] On the copious scenes featuring smoking, Weiner stated that "Doing this show without smoking would've been a joke. It would've been sanitary and it would've been phony."[6] Since the actors cannot, by law, smoke tobacco cigarettes in their workplace, they instead smoke herbal cigarettes.[1][6] In a nod to New York City, Robert Morse was cast in the role of senior partner Bertram Cooper. In the 1960s, Morse starred in A Guide for the Married Man (1967), a source of inspiration for Weiner,[3] and How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying (1961) — two Broadway plays about amoral New Yorkers.

Weiner collaborated with cinematographer Phil Abraham and production designers Robert Shaw (who worked on the pilot only) and Dan Bishop to develop a visual style that was "influenced more by cinema than television."[4] Alan Taylor, a veteran director of The Sopranos, directed the pilot and also helped establish the series' visual tone.[10] To convey an "air of mystery" around Don Draper, Abraham tended to shoot from behind him or would frame him partially obscured. Many scenes set at Sterling Cooper were shot lower-than-eyeline to incorporate the ceilings into the composition of frame; this reflects the photography, graphic design and architecture of the period. Abraham felt that neither steadicam nor handheld camera work would be appropriate to the "visual grammar of that time, and that aesthetic didn’t mesh with [their] classic approach" — accordingly, the sets were designed to be practical for dolly work.[4]

Episode format

The opening title sequence features credits superimposed over a graphic animation of a business man falling from a height, surrounded by skyscrapers with reflections of period advertising posters and billboards, accompanied by a short edit of the instrumental "A Beautiful Mine" by RJD2. The business man appears as a black and white silhouette. The titles pay homage to graphic designer Saul Bass's skyscraper filled opening titles for Alfred Hitchcock's North by Northwest (1959) and falling man movie poster for Vertigo (1958) – Weiner has listed Hitchcock as a major influence on the visual style of the series.[6] At their end, episodes either fade to black or smash cut to black as period music or a theme by series composer David Carbonara plays during the ending credits.

Crew

Aside from having created the series, Matthew Weiner is the show runner, head writer, and the sole executive producer; he contributes to each episode – writing or co-writing the scripts, casting various roles, and approving costume and set designs.[1][2] He is notorious for being highly selective about all aspects of the series, and promotes a high level of secrecy around production details.[1][2] Tom Palmer served as a co-executive producer and writer on the first season. Scott Hornbacher, Todd London, Lisa Albert, Andre Jacquemetton, and Maria Jacquemetton were producers on the first season. Palmer, Albert, Andre Jacquemetton, and Maria Jacquemetton were also writers on the first season. Bridget Bedard, Chris Provenzano, and writer's assistant Robin Veith complete the first season writing team.

Albert, Andre Jacquemetton, and Maria Jacquemetton returned as supervising producers for the second season. Veith also returned and was promoted to staff writer. Hornbacher replaced Palmer as co-executive producer for the second season. Consulting producers David Isaacs, Marti Noxon, Rick Cleveland, and Jane Anderson joined the crew for the second season. Tim Hunter, Alan Taylor, Andrew Bernstein, and Lesli Linka Glatter are regular directors for the series.

Characters

Main article: List of characters in Mad Men

Mad Men features an ensemble cast representing several segments of society in 1960s New York, although it focuses more on Don Draper. Mad Men places emphasis on showing each character's past and their development over time.

Lead characters:[11]

  • Don Draper (born in 1925 as Richard "Dick" Whitman) (Jon Hamm): creative director and eventual junior partner of Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency; Draper is the series' protagonist. His past is shadowy, but he has achieved success and attained a reputation due to his insight into the consumer's mind. He is married to Elizabeth "Betty" Draper, with two children, but is not satisfied and embarks on several affairs. Draper has a complicated personal life, on which Hamm commented: "He has a marriage he’s not that involved in, kids he’s not that involved in, a brother he wasn’t involved with at all. He tries to make amends a day late and a dollar short. That’s his great tragedy."[1] "[H]e wants to be a different kind of person than he is."[12]
  • Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss): She began as the ostensibly naïve "new girl" at Sterling Cooper. Starting as Draper's unassuming new secretary, Peggy showed a talent in advertising strikingly similar to Draper's own. A few months after being hired, she was promoted to junior copywriter and eventually received her own office (albeit one that she shared with the floor's Xerox machine). During her first week at work, in March 1960, on the advice of Joan, Peggy goes on the pill even though we assume she is a virgin. Later that night, a drunk Pete Campbell stops by her apartment and sleeps with her, even though he is to marry Trudy that weekend. A few months later, Peggy sleeps with Pete again, this time on his office couch while the janitor watches. During the first season finale, Peggy has a horrible stomach ache which she thinks is attributed to bad office food and goes to the hospital. Instead, the doctor informs a shocked Peggy that she is in labor. This results in the birth of their son in late December 1960. Sometime during the second season, the boy is given up for adoption. During second season flashbacks, we learn how Draper rescues Peggy from the mental ward. Peggy does not inform Pete about the birth of their child until two years later, and her "time away from work" remains a mystery to most of the Sterling Cooper staff. Pete believes she went to a fat farm because she comes back to the office much slimmer. Others joke that she dropped 9 pounds because Draper knocked her up. After Freddy Rumsen's departure, Peggy is promoted to copywriter, taking over Freddy's accounts and eventually moving into Freddy's old office.
  • Peter "Pete" Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser): a young, ambitious junior account executive. Campbell comes from an old-monied Manhattan family that, while as of late has run into financial difficulties, remains influential. Pete lived a life of privilege prior to joining Sterling Cooper. He appears to have been something of a cad at first, and sexually pursues Peggy despite his pending marriage to Trudy; he eventually settles down. He tries to blackmail Don Draper with information on the latter's past; the attempt backfires, but Campbell remains in good standing at Sterling Cooper. After attempting to father a child with Trudy (and briefly considering adoption), he learns Peggy had his child and subsequently "gave it away."
  • Elizabeth "Betty" Draper (January Jones): Don Draper's wife and mother of their two children, Sally and Bobby. Prior to marrying Don, Betty had been a professional model. However, she has since become, on the surface, the very model of a 1950s homemaker, staying at home and minding the children while Don goes to work and comes back at odd hours. In the first season, her relationship with Don is rather distant, manifesting itself in tremors and other psychosomatic disturbances that eventually cause Don to set up sessions for her with a therapist. In season two, Betty is a much stronger person; she takes up horseback riding and frequently clashes with Don over matters of parenting. When she discovers his affairs, she tells him not to come home. Following a brief separation, Betty allows Don to return home after discovering she is pregnant with their third child, but not before picking up an anonymous man in a bar and having sex with him on a bathroom longue in the men's room in the same bar. Jones described her character as "lost [...] She’s supposed to be this perfect Grace Kelly wife of a businessman, and it’s just not going the way she imagined."[1]
  • Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks): an office manager at Sterling Cooper. She is also the head of the secretarial pool, and acts as a professional and social mentor to the office's secretaries. Joan embodies the voluptuous role of femme fatale. She had a long-term affair with Roger Sterling until his two heart attacks caused him to abandon his adulterous behavior. Joan recognizes that she lives in a man's world, and accepts her socially proscribed role as a woman within such a world. Joan briefly assisted Harry Crane when he needed help with proofing TV scripts, a role which she relished but one that her jealous and controlling fiancé opposed. Harry eventually hired a man to read the scripts, a move that greatly disappointed Joan but one that she, as a woman in a man's world, did not oppose. Joan's relationship with her doctor fiancé is frequently punctuated by ugly possessive moments.
  • Roger Sterling (John Slattery): one of the two senior partners of Sterling Cooper, and a good friend of Don Draper. His father founded the firm with Bertram Cooper, which explains why his name is before Cooper's. A picture in Cooper's office shows Roger as a child sitting on Cooper's knee. In the same scene showing Cooper referring to the picture calls Roger, "Peanut", indicating that theirs is a friendship or even family relationship that spans many decades. Roger was a notorious womanizer until two heart attacks changed his perspective for a while. The heart attacks did not affect his drinking habits, which remained excessive even by Sterling Cooper's standards. Despite these characteristics, he retains considerable affection from both Sterling Cooper employees (with whom he has far more contact than Bert Cooper) and his family. By 1962, Sterling has returned to work and is seen to indulge in many of his old habits. He has also left his wife, Mona, for Don's former secretary, the 20-year old Jane.

Recurring characters:

  • Paul Kinsey (Michael Gladis): A creative copywriter, the somewhat pompous and bourgeois pipe-smoking Paul prides himself on his socially progressive views. Some time prior to season one, he had had a relationship with Joan Holloway which ended poorly because Paul spoke too much about their relationship. Paul tried unsuccessfully to date Peggy soon after she was hired by Sterling Cooper. Through most of the second season, Paul dated an African-American woman from South Orange, New Jersey. They broke up while in Oxford, Mississippi where they had gone as Freedom Riders to oppose segregation in the South. Kinsey lives the low income southern section of New Jersey suburb of Montclair.
  • Ken Cosgrove (Aaron Staton): The young account executive originating from Vermont. Outside the office, Ken is an aspiring author having had a short story published in the Atlantic Monthly, a fact which is the source of some envy from his co-workers, particularly the competitive Pete Campbell. According to his bio in the Atlantic Monthly, Ken attended Columbia University. He continues to write outside of work, the results of which have yet to be seen. He has one fan, Salvatore, who secretly has a crush on the handsome account exec.
  • Harry Crane (Rich Sommer): A media buyer recently appointed the head of Sterling Cooper's newly formed television department (which originally consisted solely of Harry until he expanded the department by one script reviewer in season two). Although Harry joins his colleagues in drinking and flirtations, he is a dedicated husband and soon to be father. However, he did have a one night stand with a secretary in season one which led to his being briefly kicked out of his home by his wife. Harry's wife has been instrumental in motivating her husband to be more ambitious at work.
  • Salvatore Romano (Bryan Batt): the Italian-American art director at Sterling Cooper. Sal is the only "ethnic" in a high-level position at the agency, and is also a closeted gay man. Fearful of acting upon his homosexuality, he avoided at least one sexual encounter with another man. By 1962, Sal had married a woman, Kitty, who seems unaware of Sal's sexual orientation, yet is nonetheless starting to realize that her husband does not love her. The issue of being closeted for Sal is shown in brief but stark contrast against the newly evolving social attitudes towards homosexuality. Sal's secret crush on Ken Cosgrove comes uncomfortably and awkwardly close to being revealed during a dinner in Sal's apartment. Later, when a recently hired young advertising exec, Kurt, publicly announces his homosexuality, Sal remains painfully silent while his fellow co-workers speak disparagingly about Kurt.
  • Bertram Cooper (Robert Morse): The somewhat eccentric senior partner at Sterling Cooper. He has a behind-the-scenes, hands-off approach to business, leaving day-to-day affairs to Sterling and Draper. Bertram is a Republican with an admiration for the ideas of Ayn Rand. He is also fascinated by Japanese culture, especially Japanese art. He has a Mark Rothko painting hanging in his office. Bert refuses to let anyone wear shoes in his office. Bert's sister also owns a controlling share in Sterling Cooper.
  • Herman 'Duck' Phillips (Mark Moses): Director of Account Services at Sterling Cooper. He had previously worked at the London office of Young & Rubicam, a larger agency, but an undisclosed fiasco caused him to leave. A tough, driven executive, he often clashes with Don Draper. Duck is an alcoholic and was recently divorced. He is the father of two children. Duck has recently engineered the sale of Sterling Cooper to a British agency that was seeking a foothold in America. As a reward for his role in the sale, Duck was to have been promoted to company president under the new Sterling Cooper, which is now a free-standing division under the British agency, but Don's opposition, and Duck's failure to realize that Don wasn't bound by a contract, left that promotion highly in doubt in the season 2 finale.
  • Freddy Rumsen (Joel Murray) was a copywriter at Sterling Cooper. He was the first in the office to notice Peggy Olsen's talent for copywriting while working on an ad campaign for Belle Jolie. Since that time, he has been supportive of Olsen's copywriting efforts. Freddie also displays a talent for playing Mozart on the zipper of his pants. After a petit mal seizure caused Freddy to lose control of his bladder immediately prior to an important client pitch, he was considered a liability to the agency. Roger Sterling asked Freddy to take a paid six month leave of absence, with the implicit understanding that Freddy would not be returning to Sterling Cooper.
  • Francine Hanson (Anne Dudek): One of Betty Draper’s closest friends and neighbors. She spends much time with Betty, gossiping about other neighbors. She is also somewhat jealous and vindictive, becoming furious upon discovering her husband Carlton's infidelity. Francine and her husband remain together.
  • Trudy Campbell (Alison Brie): Pete Campbell's upscale East Side wife. She is unaware of her husband's early infidelity with Peggy prior to their marriage. Trudy wants to be a mother but has so far been unable to conceive despite seeing fertility experts. Her attempts at adopting a child have been angrily refused by Pete, whose upper class family frowns on bringing an unrelated outsider as heir to the family name. Trudy's parents live in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, where Trudy retreated to without Pete during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
  • Rachel Menken (Maggie Siff): The Jewish head of a department store who becomes romantically involved with Draper after she comes to Sterling Cooper in search of an advertising agency to revamp her business' image. She is one of the kinder and more thoughtful people in Draper's world; their relationship becomes physically and emotionally close for a time, as he is able to tell her things he could never share with Midge Daniels or with his wife. When Don is blackmailed by Pete Campbell, he comes to Rachel with the suggestion that they run away together to Los Angeles. She reminds him of his duty to his children, and questions whether he would want to abandon his children after having grown up without a father. When Don persists, Rachel comes to the realization that he didn't want to run away with her, he just wanted to run away. She calls him a coward. Their friendship seems to collapse from that point on. Meeting her in season 2 while out to eat with Bobbie Barrett, the wife of a comedian the firm is using to advertise potato chips, the show reveals that Rachel has gotten married in the interim, going from Miss Menken to Mrs. Katz.
  • Father John Gill (Colin Hanks): A young Catholic priest visiting at the church Peggy's family attends in Brooklyn. He tries to keep Peggy in contact with the parish employing her advertising skills for the benefit of the church. He appears to represent a more modern and engaged kind of clergy than the parish has experienced before. He has been very intrusive when moralizing to Peggy about making amends for the baby she had out of wedlock. Peggy is politely able to deflect Father Gill's meddling but to little avail. She has so far failed to deter the priest from his self-appointed mission to induce Peggy to rectify her past.
  • Anna Draper (Melinda Page Hamilton): The widow of the true Don Draper who spent years tracking down her missing "living" husband only to find out that her husband died in the Korean War and that Dick Whitman had assumed his identity to escape the war. She became a close confidante of Dick Whitman, who as Don, supports Anna with restitution money for the loss of her real husband and for allowing him to keep the Don Draper identity he adopted. She also divorced the present-day "Don" to allow him to marry Betty. Anna lives in California where she teaches piano. She is a polio survivor who walks with a limp.

Episodes

Main article: List of Mad Men episodes
Season Episodes Season Premiere Season Finale
Season 1 13 July 19, 2007 October 18, 2007
Season 2 13 July 27, 2008 October 26, 2008

Themes

Mad Men depicts parts of American society and culture of the early 1960s, highlighting cigarette smoking, drinking, sexism, adultery, homophobia, antisemitism, and ethnic and racial bias as examples of how that era was so much different than the present.[6][13] Smoking, far more common in 1960's United States than it is now, is featured throughout the series; almost every character can be seen smoking multiple times in the course of an episode.[6] In the pilot, representatives of Lucky Strike cigarettes come to Sterling Cooper looking for a new advertising campaign in the wake of a Reader's Digest report that smoking will lead to various health issues including lung cancer.[14] The show presents a subculture in which men who are engaged or married frequently enter sexual relationships with other women. The series also observes advertising as a corporate outlet for creativity for mainstream, middle-class, young, white men. The main character, Don Draper, observes at one point about Sterling-Cooper, "This place has more failed artists and intellectuals than the Third Reich."[15] Along with each of these examples, however, there are hints of the future and the radical changes of the later 1960s; Betty's anxiety, the Beats that Draper discovers through Midge, even talk about how smoking is bad for health (usually dismissed or ignored). Characters also see stirrings of change in the ad industry itself, with the Volkswagen Beetle's "Think Small" ad campaign mentioned and dismissed by many at Sterling Cooper.

Impact

Ratings

"The second season finale...posted a significantly higher numbers than the series' first season finale and was up 20% over the season two average. 1.75 million viewers watched Sunday night's season finale, according to fast national data from Nielsen Media Research. The cumulative audience for the three airings of the episode Sunday night (at 9pm, 11 p.m. and 1 a.m.) was 2.9 million viewers." [2]

Critical reception

Mad Men has received highly positive critical response since its premiere. Viewership for the premiere at 10 p.m. on July 19, 2007, was higher than any other AMC original series to date.[16] A New York Times reviewer called the series groundbreaking for "luxuriating in the not-so-distant past."[13] The San Francisco Chronicle called Mad Men "stylized, visually arresting […] an adult drama of introspection and the inconvenience of modernity in a man's world".[7] A Chicago Sun-Times reviewer described the series as an "unsentimental portrayal of complicated 'whole people' who act with the more decent 1960 manners America has lost, while also playing grab-ass and crassly defaming subordinates."[17] The reaction at Entertainment Weekly was similar, noting how in the period in which Mad Men takes place, "play is part of work, sexual banter isn't yet harassment, and America is free of self-doubt, guilt, and countercultural confusion."[18] The Los Angeles Times said that the show had found "a strange and lovely space between nostalgia and political correctness".[19] The show also received critical praise for its historical accuracy – mainly its depictions of gender and racial bias, sexual dynamics in the workplace, and the high prevalence of smoking and drinking.[20][3][19][21] The Washington Post agreed with most other reviews in regard to Mad Men's visual style, but disliked what was referred to as "lethargic" pacing of the storylines.[22]

The American Film Institute selected it as one of the 10 best television series of 2007,[23] and it was named the best television show of that year by the Television Critics Association[24] and several national publications, including the Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, TIME Magazine, and TV Guide.[25]

On June 20, 2007, a consumer activist group called Commercial Alert filed a complaint with the United States Distilled Spirits Council alleging that Mad Men sponsor Jack Daniel's whiskey was violating liquor advertising standards since the show features "depictions of overt sexual activity" as well as irresponsible intoxication.[26] Jack Daniel's was mentioned by name in the fifth episode.

Among people who worked in advertising during the 1960s, opinions on the realism of Mad Men differ to some extent. Jerry Della Femina, who worked as a copywriter in that era and later founded his own agency, said that the show "accurately reflects what went on. The smoking, the prejudice and the bigotry."[1] Robert Levinson, one of Weiner's advertising consultants, who worked at BBDO from 1960 to 1980, concurred with Femina: "What [Matthew Weiner] captured was so real. The drinking was commonplace, the smoking was constant, the relationships between the executives and the secretaries was exactly right."[1] However, Allen Rosenshine, a copywriter who went on to lead BBDO, called the show "a total fabrication," saying, "if anybody talked to women the way these goons do, they’d have been out on their ass."[27]

Awards

Main article: List of Mad Men awards and nominations

In 2008, Mad Men won the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series - Drama and Jon Hamm won the Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor In A Television Series - Drama for his performance as Don Draper. Mad Men received a 2007 Peabody Award from the Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Georgia.[28] Jon Hamm was nominated for Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series and the cast of Mad Men were nominated for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series.[29] Additionally, Vincent Kartheiser was honored with a 2007 Young Hollywood award for his work as Pete Campbell.

The show also won the Writers Guild of America Award for Best New Series,[30] and the first-season episode "Shoot" won the Art Directors Guild Award for Excellence in Production Design for a Single Camera Television Series.[31] Mad Men also received a special achievement Satellite Award from the International Press Academy for Best Television Ensemble.[32]

Mad Men was the most-nominated drama series and the third most-nominated series overall at the 60th Primetime Emmy Awards in 2008, receiving 16 nominations total – behind the NBC comedy 30 Rock and the HBO miniseries John Adams, with 17 and 23 nominations, respectively.[33] Alongside the concurrently nominated FX drama Damages, it became one of the first basic cable series to ever be nominated for the award for Outstanding Drama Series,[34] an award that it subsequently won. Series creator Matthew Weiner also won the award for Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series for his script for the premiere episode, "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes". In the technical categories, Mad Men won Emmys for Outstanding Hair-Styling for a Single Camera Series (episode: "Shoot"), Outstanding Art Direction for a Single Camera Series (episode: "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes"), Outstanding Main Title Design, and Outstanding Cinematography for a One-Hour Series (episode: "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes").

Marketing

In promotion for the series, AMC aired multiple commercials and a behind the scenes documentary on the making of Mad Men before its premiere. The commercials, as well as the documentary, featured the song "You Know I'm No Good" by Amy Winehouse.[6] The documentary, in addition to trailers and sneak peeks of upcoming episodes, were released on the official AMC website. Mad Men was also made available at the iTunes Store on July 20, 2007, along with the "making of" documentary.[35]

For the second season, AMC undertook the largest marketing campaign it had ever launched, intending to reflect the "cinematic quality" of the series.[36] The Grand Central Station subway shuttle to Times Square was decorated with life-size posters of Jon Hamm as Don Draper, and quotes from the first season.[36] Inside Grand Central, flash mobs dressed in period clothing would hand out "Sterling Cooper" business cards to promote the July 27 season premiere.[36] Window displays were arranged at 14 Bloomingdale's stores for exhibition throughout July, and a 45' by 100' wallscape was posted at the corner of Hollywood and Highland in downtown Hollywood.[36] Television commercials on various cable and local networks, full-page print ads, and a 30-second trailer in Landmark Theaters throughout July were also run in promotion of the series.[36]

Inspired by the iconic Zippo brand, the DVD box set of the first season of Mad Men was designed like a flip-open Zippo lighter. Zippo subsequently developed two designs of lighters with "Mad Men" logos to be sold at the company headquarters and online.[37] The DVD box set, as well as a high definition Blu-ray disc set, was released July 1, 2008; it features a total of 23 audio commentaries on the season's 13 episodes from various members of the cast and crew.[38]

Product placement

As befits a program about advertising and marketing, Mad Men integrates product placement into its narratives. For instance, in a second season episode, the beer manufacturer Heineken is seen as a client seeking to bring their beer to the attention of American consumers. This placement was paid for by Heineken as an additional part of their advertising on the show. Cadillac has a similar deal with Mad Men. Other examples remain less obvious, like ads worked on by the firm, or companies sought as clients such as Utz potato chips, Maidenform, American Airlines, Clearasil and others.[39]

International broadcasting

In Australia, the show airs on Movie Extra.[40]

In Bulgaria, the show airs on Fox Life.

In Canada, the show airs on AMC Canada, Bravo! Canada and CTV.

In Finland, the show airs on Nelonen.

In France, the show airs on Canal+ and its "Bouquet".

In Greece, the show airs on Alter, every Wednesday at 23:30.

In Hungary, the show airs on every Sunday at 22:00 on m1, the main channel of Hungarian Television. Title is Mad Men - Reklámőrültek(Ad-a-holics).

In Ireland, the show airs on RTÉ Two on Monday nights at 23:30.[41]

In Israel it airs on cable television. Due to linguistic problems, it was renamed "Men Of Madison Avenue".

In Italy, the show airs on Cult.

In Norway, the show airs on Viasat 4.

In Poland, the shows airs on Fox Life.

In Serbia, the show airs on Fox Life.

In Singapore, the show airs on FX.

In South Korea, the show airs on FX TV weekdays at midnight.

In Spain, the show airs on Canal+ .

In Sweden, the show airs on Kanal 9 Sunday nights at 21.00.

In Turkey, the show airs on e2.

In the United Kingdom, the show airs on BBC Four.

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Witchel, Alex (2008-06-22). "'Mad Men' Has Its Moment". The New York Times. The New York Times Company. Retrieved 2008-07-05.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Schwartz, Missy (2008-05-30). "'Mad Men': Inside Summer TV's No. 1 Hidden Gem". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2008-07-19.
  3. ^ a b c d e f Steinberg, Jacques (2007-07-18). "In Act 2, the TV Hit Man Becomes a Pitch Man". New York Times. Retrieved 2007-08-15.
  4. ^ a b c Feld, Rob (March 2008). "Tantalizing Television". American Cinematographer. 89 (3). {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  5. ^ Haugsted, Linda (2007-06-25). "AMC Mad About VOD, HD Push for Mad Men". Multichannel News. Retrieved 2007-07-21.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Matthew Weiner et al. (2007). The Making of Mad Men (Documentary). AMC. {{cite AV media}}: Explicit use of et al. in: |authors= (help)
  7. ^ a b Goodman, Tim (2007-07-18). "New York in 1960, when the 'Mad Men' were in charge -- and everything was about to change". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 2007-07-21.
  8. ^ Salem, Rob (2007-07-19). "Lost in the '60s with Mad Men". Toronto Star. Retrieved 2007-07-21.
  9. ^ Poniewozik, James (2007-07-20). "Mad Men Watch: Lucky Strike". TIME. Retrieved 2007-07-23.
  10. ^ "Mad Men - Cast & Crew - Alan Taylor". AMC. 2007. Retrieved 2008-07-20.
  11. ^ About the show, amctv.com. Retrieved on August 18, 2008
  12. ^ Smith, Lynn (2008-07-20). "The women of 'Mad Men'". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2008-07-21.
  13. ^ a b Stanley, Alessandra (2007-07-19). "Smoking, Drinking, Cheating and Selling". New York Times. Retrieved 2007-07-21.
  14. ^ "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes". Mad Men. Season 1. Episode 1. 2007-07-19. AMC.
  15. ^ "New Amsterdam". Mad Men. Episode 4. 2007-08-09. AMC. {{cite episode}}: Unknown parameter |[season= ignored (help)
  16. ^ Nordyke, Kimberly (2007-07-20). "AMC "Mad" about ratings for series bow". Reuters/Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved 2007-07-21.
  17. ^ Elfman, Doug (2007-07-19). "'Men' behaving badly -- and honestly". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 2007-07-21.
  18. ^ Tucker, Ken (2007-07-13). "Mad Men". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2007-07-21.
  19. ^ a b McNamara, Mary (2007-07-19). "Back when men were 'Mad Men'". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2007-07-21.
  20. ^ Lowry, Brian (2007-07-11). "Mad Men". Variety.com. Retrieved 2007-07-20.
  21. ^ Salem, Rob (2007-07-19). "Lost in the '60s with Mad Men". Toronto Star. Retrieved 2007-07-21.
  22. ^ Shales, Tom (2007-07-19). "AMC's 'Mad Men': A Bunch of Cutthroats Without an Edge". Washington Post. Retrieved 2007-08-11.
  23. ^ "AFI Awards 2007 Official Selections Announced" (PDF) (Press release). American Film Institute. 2007-12-16. Retrieved 2008-07-18.
  24. ^ "AMC Scores First-Ever TCA Awards With Top Honors" (HTML) (Press release). Television Critics Association. 2008-07-19. Retrieved 2008-07-20. Members of the Television Critics Association bestowed three TCA Awards on AMC's freshman series "Mad Men" tonight, including Program of the Year, Outstanding New Program of the Year and Outstanding Achievement in Drama, marking the first-ever wins for the network.
  25. ^ "Best TV Shows of 2007". Metacritic. Retrieved 2008-07-18. It was also included in the top ten lists of the Boston Globe, Entertainment Weekly, the Los Angeles Times and LA Weekly, the New Jersey Star-Ledger, the Orlando Sentinel, the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Jose Mercury-News, and USA Today.
  26. ^ Smith, Lynn (2007-06-21). "'Mad Men' and Jack Daniel's: Bad mix?". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2007-07-21.
  27. ^ Erikson, Chris (2007-08-27). "Remembering the days when a business lunch came in a highball glass". New York Post. Retrieved 2007-08-31.
  28. ^ "Complete List of 2007 Peabody Award Winners" (HTML) (Press release). University of Georgia's Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication. 2008-04-02. Retrieved 2008-07-18. The way they were on Madison Avenue, in the Manhattan towers and the bedroom communities of New York, circa 1960, is recalled in rich detail and a haze of cigarette smoke in this exemplary period dramatic series.
  29. ^ "Nominations Announced For The 14th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards" (HTML) (Press release). Screen Actors Guild. 2007-12-20. Retrieved 2008-07-18. Specifically, the nominees were Bryan Batt, Anne Dudek, Michael Gladis, Jon Hamm, Christina Hendricks, January Jones, Vincent Kartheiser, Robert Morse, Elisabeth Moss, Maggie Siff, John Slattery, Rich Sommer, and Aaron Staton.
  30. ^ "2008 Writers Guild Awards Winners Announced" (HTML) (Press release). Writers Guild of America, West. 2008-02-09. Retrieved 2008-07-18. Specifically, the award went to Lisa Albert, Bridget Bedard, Andre Jacquemetton, Maria Jacquemetton, Tom Palmer, Chris Provenzano, Robin Veith, and Matthew Weiner.
  31. ^ "Art Directors Guild (ADG) Announces Winners Of Its 2007 Excellence In Production Design Awards" (PDF) (Press release). Art Directors Guild. 2007-02-16. Retrieved 2008-07-18. Specifically, the award went to Dan Bishop.
  32. ^ Maxwell, Erin (2007-12-17). "Satellite Award winners announced". Variety. Retrieved 2008-07-18.
  33. ^ "60th Primetime Emmy Awards Nominations Summary". Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. 2008. Retrieved 2008-07-18.
  34. ^ Lowry, Brian (2008-07-17). "Emmys fond of dear 'John'". Variety. Retrieved 2008-07-19.
  35. ^ "AMC Announces Original Drama Series Mad Men To Launch on iTunes". PR Newswire. 2007-07-19. Retrieved 2007-07-21.
  36. ^ a b c d e "AMC Launches Largest Marketing Campaign to Date to Promote Season Two of Mad Men" (HTML) (Press release). Rainbow Media. 2008-06-30. Retrieved 2008-07-18.
  37. ^ Elliott, Stuart (2008-06-30). "Madison Avenue Likes What It Sees in the Mirror". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-07-19.
  38. ^ Chaney, Jen (2008-07-01). "Good 'Men,' With More Than a Few Extras". Washington Post. Retrieved 2008-07-19.
  39. ^ Intellevision by Rick McGinnis (September 16, 2008 05:00). "Metro - Mad Men's product placement museum". Metronews.ca. Retrieved 2008-10-21. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  40. ^ [1]
  41. ^ RTÉ Two - Mad Men
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