Season Premiere

It took me around two months, but last night I finally completed all three seasons of AMC's Mad Men. With the season premiere being tomorrow (Sunday 7/25 at 10:00pm), I was pressed for time these last few weeks. But I am very happy that I am finished, and cant wait for tomorrow nights season premiere.

If you don't know what Mad Men is, it was only won the Screen Actors Guild Award for the best television drama in 2008, 2009, and 2010. So yea, it's good. The main plot revolves around Don Draper (Jon Hamm) as the creative director for the fictional New York advertising company, Sterling-Cooper in the 1960s. I don't want to give away any spoilers or anything for those who haven't seen any episodes or sound like Wikipedia, which gives good information on the show, so I will try to be brief.

What originally drew me in in season one was the culture and seeing how life in New York was in the 60s. I won't lie, I didn't think the first few episodes were all that great, but it was the historicism that kept my interest. It wasn't until later in the season that you were able to see some kind of direction and form relationships with the characters.

It truly so different from today and yet it was only around 40 years ago. Historical topics such as the Space Race and the fear of Russians and the assassination of President Kennedy come up on the show and do a far better job of portraying the emotions of the time than any text book.

Though there isn't an actor on the show that is a household name, that doesn't mean that this is poor cast. The acting is tremendous and it is good to see Jon Hamm getting bigger within Hollywood. His supporting cast, Betty Draper (January Jones), Peggy Olson (Elizabeth Moss) and Peter Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) are all young actors with bright futures.

The season three finale that I watched last night, was really a phenomenal episode. Though I suggest trying to watch all 39 episodes if possible (I watched nearly all of them online and they are all easily found) if you are going to watch one episode in advance of season four, make sure it is that one.