AMC
Mad Men is a show largely about how our pasts define us, so it’s fitting that it’s set in the 1960s—a revolutionary decade that shaped America more than almost any 10-year span since. But don’t dismiss this period piece for a history lesson. The show is, at its best, one of the best television dramas ever created, and at its worst … maybe a little slow for some. (It is, after all, a series about a New York advertising agency in the ’60s, not the US military or Civil Rights Movement.) But it still has plenty of action—it’s just more of the philandering businessman variety.
For the 10 years we follow Don Draper and his cohorts we learn what it meant to be a man in the ’60s—or at least a WASPy ad man in Manhattan, a narrow yet powerful demographic. Their power was derived from an ability to keep it together in a culture where three-martini lunch meetings were often the norm and cheating on your wife was expected, but where that power felt more fleeting with each passing year (see: the falling suit-and-tie avatar in the opening credits). The show glamorizes alcoholism and adultery, but it doesn’t suggest that these behaviors are sustainable. There’s too much at stake.
The show
Article source: http://www.wired.com/2015/01/binge-guide-mad-men/
