Mad Men

I am at a crossroads in my relationship with the acclaimed TV show Mad Men. Only having watched four episodes of the initial season does not really qualify me to pass balanced judgment on it, but I’m finding it difficult to find a compelling reason to keep watching. Although the acclaim for the show’s meticulous recreation of the period details is a little misplaced given that the characters are mostly acted in a very contemporary vein and the attitudes of the writers and producers toward the era and industry fairly rigidly drawn, there is something compulsively watchable about many of the performances and storylines. I’d probably keep going if it wasn’t so damn depressing. Based on what I’ve learned from this show, I honestly don’t know how a generation of Americans lived through the early 60s…