In a couple of weeks, the last season of “Mad Men,” AMC’s award winning drama series, will begin…
Greeted with both critical and popular acclaim when it debuted in 2007, the show has gone from strength to strength and Matthew Weiner, its creator, has promised it will go out on a high note.
I was intrigued with the premise of the show, i.e. the lives of a group of men and women working in an up and coming Madison Avenue advertising agency in the 1960’s. I’ve known people who were in the “ad game” during that era and they made it sound like a fun and exciting time, if a little manic at moments. (Hence the series’ title!)
However, I’d not actually sat down to watch the show until a long snowy weekend this winter made for a “binge” viewing session. (That’s also how I got into ‘The Sopranos” initially.)
By the time I’d seen the first four seasons, I was curious as to how critics had treated it.
Imagine my irritation when I realized that while virtually all the reviews were favorable, the single most influential critic was Daniel Mendelsohn, who panned the show in unequivocal terms. (You will recall that Danny-boy was the snark-meister who trashed my friend’s book on the Parthenon. See ‘The Hunting of The Snark; 1-27-15.)
It’s one thing, however, for a critic to attack a work on classical archaeology, quite another to take on a revered cable TV series with millions of fans. Continue reading
