The Return of Mad Men

The hit television series Mad Man returns for a fifth series.

I cannot say that I am enthused. I watched most of the first four series of the show and found my interest in it steadily dropping. My friends enjoyed it and I enjoyed discussing the show with them. I felt that from the beginning the style and aesthetic held the show up as an exemplary piece of television.

The more I watched it the less convinced I was. The problem for me is that the whole affair is inescapably shallow. The characters are all shallow and unlikeable, the references to historical events are laughable tangents and the plot-lines utterly contrived. All of this, you could say, is the theme of the advertisement industry. Of course a show about Madison Avenue men would be of this ilk.

Not for, say, Hitchcock's North by Northwest, a striking film from the 50s about a case of mistaken identity, implicating a Madison Avenue man in a plot of murder, intrigue and espionage. This character had depth, had something we could cling to, while the plot was engaging and unpredictable.

Mad Men might be more post-modern but it is certainly not as fun and certainly not as provocative.

-The English Student