Mad Men

For the last month I have been utterly obsessed with Mad Men. I binge watched all 7 seasons in a few weeks, growing deeply attached to these nuanced and well-developed characters.

The story spans the entire decade of the 60s when the country was going through incredible social, cultural, and political changes. It's basically a very high end soap opera about an ad agency (although I don't mean soap opera in a bad way). The drama goes so deep, and the writing is so stellar, the directing just beautiful. Each episode is filled with exquisite scenes.

Most of the characters are very ego-driven and all have assholish aspects of the personalities. But with the exceptions of Duck Philips, Lou Avery, and Bert Peterson, I like all of them and I was rooting for all them.

If I had to choose a favorite, it would clearly be Roger Sterling. But tied in close second would be Joan, Betty, Ken, Peggy, Bert Cooper, Ted, Sally, Henry Francis, Lane, even Pete Campbell and Trudy...  Don, the hero, was great, but he began to wear on me a bit. His inner crises went through several redundant journeys through the course of the series. Megan didn't do much for me either.

The final season and the final episode were stunning.

Mad Men is so well executed that I plan on watching the whole thing again. Not right away, of course, but probably within a year. I don't know what I'm going to do without those guys.