Like a good song, a well-produced television show has the ability to infect your brain and leave its mark.
For fans of AMC’s “Mad Men,” the 1960s period piece about the trials and tribulations of one of Manhattan’s elite advertising agencies, the 17-month wait for season five did little to purge our heads of Don Draper and his glamorized debauchery.
The long-anticipated return on March 25 only whetted our appetites even more.
“Mad Men” has long been a recipient of critical acclaim and adequate ratings. However, Sunday’s broadcast saw a 30 percent increase in viewership among adults aged 18 to 45, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Compared to AMC’s other original series like “The Walking Dead” or “Breaking Bad,” “Mad Men” has never quite hit its stride, ratings-wise.
Add in proposed budget cuts and shortened episodes to make room for more advertisements, and you’ve got a network ready to pull the plug on what I am prepared to say is one of the best television shows of this decade. Luckily, the show went on and instead of cancellation, we were granted a hiatus.
Most people attuned to pop culture know at least something about the mysterious protagonist Don Draper, or know the series is set in New York. Other shows have attempted – unsuccessfully – to capture the milieu of the ‘60s, including ABC’s “Pan Am” and NBC’s “The Playboy Club.”
“Pan Am” has suffered a dramatic decrease in viewership, while “The Playboy Club” was cancelled after only three episodes. Why have these shows failed when “Mad Men” has flourished?
The devil is in the details. “Pan Am” and “The Playboy Club” rely too heavily on gimmicks. These shows encourage us to look back fondly on romanticized versions of the past, Playboy bunnies and glamorous stewardesses.
“Mad Men,” on the other hand, is focused on each character’s struggle to reconcile what they want and who they are, with who they were at a time in history when social and technological change was accelerating at a pace too rapid for many to keep up. The writers are careful to include times when our country was rocked with insecurity and doubt.
The Cuban Missile Crisis, the Bay of Pigs, the Vietnam War, the assassination of President Kennedy, the civil rights movement – all of these national events are addressed in “Mad Men.”
There is no attempt to simply skate over dark periods in our nation’s past. “Mad Men” may feed our yearning for a return to an earlier era, though it refuses sentimentality and instead embraces a more modern desire for the future yet unseen.
There’s a scene in the season one finale when Don Draper pitches an advertising campaign for a new slide projector, using old photographs of his own family in which everyone looks brighter, cleaner and happier than we’ve ever seen them throughout the duration of the show.
Don becomes rather wistful as he gazes upon his younger self.
“In Greek,” he says, “nostalgia literally means the pain from an old wound. It’s a twinge in your heart, far more powerful than memory alone. It takes us to a place where we ache to go again.”
This very human feeling can overwhelm us at times. It’s why we read old books, why we keep our high school yearbooks, why we take pictures – so we can remember how things used to be.
Why is “Mad Men” so successful?
Because, like a song from our childhoods, it gets stuck in our heads - how we felt then, who we were – and all we can do is play it again.
Reach the columnist at skthoma4@asu.edu
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