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The acting is great and every word uttered is clever. Other than that, I found an assortment of mostly dislikable people in a 60s setting, with the negatives amped up to 10. Those who lived through the period will recall that much of what went on was not malicious, it was institutionalized. By the second episode, as I watched the ad man falling from the building I thought, what a downer and as far as men and women are concerned, beneath the surface, how much has really changed. I finally got to see what all the fuss is about but I wasn't expecting Peyton Place. Like smoking, a lot of people just didn't know any better.
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He and his team, most notably newcoming Peter Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser, Angel's son Connor on "Angel"), are charged with marketing such illustrious products as cigarettes (and helping the company duck restrictions imposed by federal health agencies). Through Don we see the life of a successful male executive; he's got a beautiful wife, more than one mistress on the side (proto-hippy Midge, then department store executive Rachel Menken (Maggie Siff), the only woman in the show not occupying a menial position, and she owes that to her father), and is friends with his boss Roger. Moralists who romanticize this period as a haven of old-fashioned morality will be disappointed when confronted by the truth (or something like it) about contemporary attitudes. Our main character is Don Draper (Jon Hamm, in a marvelous performance; it is surprising that he doesn't do more period work, because he's absolutely perfect for the look of the 1950s), the creative director at Sterling Cooper, a moderate-sized ad agency run by Roger Sterling (John Slattery, best known to me from "Jack & Bobby") and Bertram Cooper (Robert Morse). Especially interesting is the HBO-style (indeed, this was originally pitched as an HBO series, and shot down; I'm grateful, if only because the DVD prices would be that much more severe) unvarnished presentation of the era. The DVD packaging has been a point of some contention here (see many of the 1-star reviews). Standout performances come from Hamm in the title role, Christina Hendricks as Joan, a secretary well-versed in using her sexuality to get what she wants (she'd be running the place if she lived 40 years later), and Elisabeth Moss as Peggy, a newby secretary with professional ambitions that are well beyond what is expected of women in that era, althoug timid Peggy doesn't seem the type to overtly identify with the feminist movement.
The original lighter-shaped box is a nifty design, though you do indeed have to watch while you close it (although the explanatory booklet in the back seems an effective shield on my set). Below him, Campbell and his cohorts battle for favour and advancement. I'm certainly not such a person, so upon hearing the idea of a cable series set on the Madison Avenue advertising scene as the nation stood on the cusp of the 1960s had enormous appeal. Who doesn't love a good period drama. Don is something of a mystery both at work and at home, where his wife Betty (January Jones, in a revelatory performance; I'd previously never thought of her as anything other than a pretty face) is living a life of quiet desperation.
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