Why Watch Mad Men

For those of you who haven't heard of Mad Men, where have you been? On Sunday, the show won its second consecutive Emmy for best Drama. Now if that isn't enough to get your attention, here is my recommendation.

Mad Men is different. Wonderfully different. It's a period piece, starting off in 1960, that follows the lives of the men and women employed at Sterling Cooper, an ad agency of Madison Avenue. They take the accuracy seriously, with costumes that are just as uncomfortable as the clothes from that time, drinking and driving a common occurrence, and smoking a hobby everyone enjoys.

More than once, there are little jabs at our current sensibilities, whether comments such as everyone likes peanut butter or expressions that are not at all politically correct.

The world is clear and precise, and filled with all of life's difficulties.

Though our hero, Don Draper, and his fellow ad men sell happiness to America, they themselves do not have it. It is an illusion, and that is what they sell so successfully. These glimpses of their lives (and the stories are collections of moments themed for coherence rather than plots with simple rise and fall) are both depressing and enthralling. You can't but love the characters despite their flaws, even because of their flaws.

As a viewer, you see these characters, watch their lives, learn their secrets, and have hope for them. Hope they will somehow find happiness, whether it is unachievable because life is against them or they are against themselves, or even because it does not exist. But you hope, and you live for those moments when things go right.

Go and watch it right now.