Origin

"It was lively, and it had something new to say. Here was someone [Weiner] who had written a story about advertising in the 1960s, and was looking at recent American history through that prism." of Sterling Cooper, a crafty old gentleman who is treated with considerable deference by Sterling and Draper. It is suggested that he knew Roger Sterling as a child, and keeps a picture of young Roger and Roger's father in his office. Cooper lectures Sterling about being dependent on smoking, and criticizes Draper for his love life (though not for his stolen identity). He has the erotic illustration The Dream of the Fisherman's Wife hung in his office and is a devotee of Atlas Shrugged and friend of its author, Ayn Rand. His office is decorated in a Japanese motif, and he requires visitors to remove their shoes before they enter his office, and also walks around the rest of Sterling Cooper in his socks. He is a very influential member of the Republican Party, and gets Sterling Cooper involved with the Nixon campaign. Cooper isn't present in the office's day-to-day wranglings, but he's devoted to the business and quietly manages various challenges from behind the scenes.

Francine Hanson (Anne Dudek): One of Betty Draper’s closest friends and neighbors, spends most afternoons gossiping with Betty about the neighborhood's newest resident, a divorcee named Helen Bishop. Francine, married to a man named Carlton, has just had her baby. In the dead heat, she struggles to keep cool while her blouses constantly seep with breast milk. Soon, Francine confides to Betty that she thinks Carlton is having an affair. The clues -- secret phone calls to Manhattan and the fact that Carlton sleeps at the Waldorf two nights a week -- make her wish she could just poison him.

Episodes

Number	itle	Director	Writer(s)	Original airdate

Themes

Mad Men depicts the society and culture of the early 1960s, highlighting cigarette smoking, drinking (alcoholic beverages), sexism, and racial bias as examples of how that era, not so long ago, was so radically different from the present. The show presents a culture where men who are engaged or married freely partake of 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." 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 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.

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. A New York Times reviewer called the series groundbreaking for "luxuriating in the not-so-distant past." 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". 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." 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." The Los Angeles Times said that the show had found "a strange and lovely space between nostalgia and political correctness". The show also received critical praise for its historical accuracy – mainly its depictions of gender and racial bias, sexual harassment in the workplace, and the high prevalence of smoking and drinking. The Washington Post agreed with most other reviews in regards to Mad Men's visual style, but disliked what was referred to as "lethargic" pacing of the storylines. Mad Men has received a score of 77 (generally favorable reviews) on the media review website Metacritic.
   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. Jack Daniel's was mentioned by name in the fifth episode.
   Among people who worked in advertising during the 1960s, opinions differ as to the show's realism. Jerry Della Femina, who worked as a copywriter in that era and later founded his own agency, said, "Picture a bunch of drunks talking to each other through a cloud of smoke — that's really what the '60s was." But Allen Rosenshine, another copywriter who went on to lead BBDO, called the show "a total fabrication."
   Mad Men has been picked up by AMC for a second season. In Canada, CTV has picked up the conventional and specialty television, broadband and video on demand rights. Time magazine's James Poniewozik named it the top new TV series of 2007.

Awards and nominations

The series 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.
   Additionally, the series won the Writers Guild of America Award for Best New Series. American Film Institute picked it as one of the ten best TV series of 2007.
   The cast of Mad Men were nominated for the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series, and Jon Hamm was nominated for Best Performance by a Male Actor in a Drama Series.
   The episode "Shoot" won the Art Directors Guild Award for Excellence in Production Design for a Single Camera Television Series.
   The Series was winner of a 2007 Peabody Award.

Production

Mad Men is shot on film and is broadcast in standard definition. It has been converted to high definition for video-on-demand availability from various cable affiliates. Though Weiner's script for the pilot of Mad Men pre-dates The Sopranos, HBO, according to Weiner, wasn't interested in producing his script. 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." The Mad Men DVD will be available in stores on July 1st. For more infomation visit AMC

International Broadcasters

Country	Network	Weekly Schedule
Australia	Fox 8
Brazil	HBO	Saturdays 8:00pm
Bulgaria	Fox Life
Canada	CTV	t.b.c.
Italy	Cult	Tuesdays
Thailand	True Series	Thursdays 9:00pm
Peru	HBO	Saturdays 10:00pm
Philippines	2nd Avenue
Portugal	Fox Next
Norway	Viasat 4	Sundays 8:00pm. Premiered on Sunday 20th April.
Sweden	Kanal 9
Turkey	e2
United Kingdom	BBC	BBC Four & BBC HD, Sundays 10:00pm; BBC Two, Tuesdays 11:20pm; BBC iPlayer
Spain	Canal+	Thursdays 21:30pm.

Further Information

Get more info on 'Mad Men'.

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