Forced sister troll to watch the 1st series at Easter. Well - I made her watch the 1st episode, and she made me watch all the rest in two sittings.

Because I'm a bit slow, the first time I watched it I didn't really notice how unhappy Betty was; trapped behind her glacial obsession with perfection, or how low the bright, efficient Joan had set her sights (in her case, of course, I was also distracted by how heart-breakingly good looking she is).

And yes - it is disturbing to see the three most pathologically in control people - Don, Betty & Joan break down a little in this series.

Brilliant - like watching paint dry with an electron microscope.

Thank you, Charlie, for writing a review that Mad Men deserves.

Mind you, I have been really enjoying the Mad Men blog on here as well ever since I discovered it in the middle of watching this series. And then I got addicted to reading all the other Cifers' takes on each episode of the last three series!!

I love all the characters in Mad Men. They are all so brilliantly flawed yet superficially perfect, and we are given insightful glimpses of every single one of them, even the minor characters, of how they try to make their way through a similarly flawed but superficially perfect society.

My biggest surprise for season 3 wasn't to do with Draper though, but the slow emergence of Betty as a thinking woman. I don't think she is disintegrating so much as emerging finally from a cocoon.

On the other hand, Draper has always struck me as somebody who always knows somehow that he doesn't deserve all the good things he has in life, and it is this sense of nebulous guilt that gives his character genuine humility. So his disintegration in this series, to me, is just a process of him finally getting in touch with himself and accepting his own background and his own weaknesses.

Despite having watched all the episodes (catching them online when I couldn't watch them on telly), I'm also ordering the Season 3 DVD (I already have Seasons 1 and 2) just so that I will be able to relish and learn more about the characters again.

Oh who am I kidding, the Season 3 DVD is only the methadone to my Mad Men addiction!! Can't wait for Season 4!

There are scenes between Peggy and Joan which say very little to the casual observer but for someone watching intently, the struggles of women in 60s America are there. Similarly scenes between Betty and their maid Carla are electric with unspoken claims to civil rights. Don is the central figure but the forces that made modern America never stop swirling around him.

I'm thankful that it is considered too slow for most people as it was pretty annoying to have people asking me if I'd heard of the Wire for the millionth time. Mad Men is in my view the best television programme ever made. Of course this must be why Mark Thomson has suggested the BBC stops showing it.

That was a great piece, Charlie. But how about all that smoking? Doesn't it make you long for a drag? Every time I try to give up, a new season of MM comes on and there's Don puffing away, enjoying himself, so I think f*ck it, and reach for the emergency pack of Marlboro Lights.

And you resisted the temptation to mention the Goddess that is Joan! C'mon Chas, doesn't she light yer logs? I've had two eye-tests since halfway through season 1! : )

If the BBC did stop showing Mad Men I suggest we organise a mass smoke-in inside Mark Thomson's office.

@CandiceMarie - has Mark Thompson really taken against Mad Men while continuing to champion BBC Three Pints Of Lager And A Licence Fee Refund Please? I seem to remember some top bod at C4 who loathed The West Wing. Mad men, indeed.

Brilliant article that sums up just what makes Mad Men so special, and so utterly watchable.
After The Wire finished, I vowed to not get so absorbed by another television programme, but slowly and surely, Mad Men got the better of me, you're absolutely spot-on when you say: "And I use the word "absorb" deliberately: you don't really "watch" Mad Men: you lie back and let it seep into you. It works by osmosis."

Anyway, roll on season 4, and I think I'll have to buy seasons 1,2 and 3 to tide me over in the interim.

PS. Lovely little film essay about the camera and Mad Men: http://mag.ma/dailymotion/49649

@sansucre - thanks for the link to The Camera And Mad Men. Camera (and sound) are integral to the world of the show. A shakycam version of Mad Men (!)

*Sees that this is another arse-slurping of Mad Men*

*Notices that Charlie's 'world' of TV extends only to American shite*

*Is appalled that Charlie ignores British Drama*

*Thinks I may never bother reading your boring articles again*

*It was good while it lasted*

You lot love it, but your priorities are so fucking wrong. You claim to love the BBC but you moan when it stops showing American shite??

A difference in opinion has never been more overstated here, but I wasn't going to let it lie. I've watched you lot fawn over Lost, 24, and countless other American trash and I just cannot take it anymore, it sucks being a fan of BBC Drama cos no fucker talks with the same passion, the kind of passion America does NOT deserve.

Coincidentally, I've just, erm, acquired all 3 seasons of Mad Men. According to IMDB the first half of season 1 (where I'm up to) is the weakest of the lot which bodes well because I've found it thoroughly enjoyable so far. I've no problem with the slow pace and character portraiture (I managed to watch all of Carnivale so it's all up hill from there pace-wise). That said, I'm looking forward to seeing these brilliantly rounded characters thrown into more extreme situations which will presumably develop in future eps / seasons.

So, as much as it pains me, I'll have to postpone reading those final two paragraphs for a couple of weeks.

@CollarFeeler

*Thinks I may never bother reading your boring articles again*

*Thinks we would all have been better off if you hadn't read this one.

@CollarFeeler

*Thinks someone is bitter about the cancellation of The Bill and retirement of Jack Duckworth*

@CollarFeeler - which BBC drama did you have in mind? I would love for Britain to produce drama as good as the best of American drama, but it doesn't. And I don't include Lost among my favourite American shows, but I don't go on Lost blogs to slag it off. That would be silly. The same goes for FlashForward; I gave up during the second episode. So no generalisations, please.

My biggest surprise for season 3 wasn't to do with Draper though, but the slow emergence of Betty as a thinking woman. I don't think she is disintegrating so much as emerging finally from a cocoon.

You're right, of course.

Good review Charlie. I watched the first series and half of the second one, but give up after losing patience. Unfortunately I crave instant gratification from telly shows and if I don`t get it, I lose interest. I may have to give this another whirl, as I could see the huge potential from the episodes I did watch. Boxset may be the way to go.

I'm not sure if its possible to have a crush on a TV show but I do know I head to work on a Wednesday morning with a spring in my step knowing I'll be seeing it later and when I think of the future (read the radio times for the week ahead) I get a sick feeling. Sigh. Just as things were going so well.

Great article. Yes, "Mad Men" is so much better than anything on British TV at the moment ("Ashes to Ashes" is cute but a mere bagatelle compared to MM...) I love the adagio pace of MM (that's my sort of speed...) and you find yourself hanging on every word of dialogue, some real gems there too and of course the pauses and exchange of looks can have as much meaning. The culture references also make you want to brush-up/read more about the era etc (I'm currently planning a re-read of Mary McCarthy's "The Group"... which Betty was reading in the bath.)
I don't know why we can't think up anything as good...perhaps British TV drama is dominated by too many soap writers these days thinking up easy "dot-to-dot" plots with characters cut from the the back of a "New Labour" endorsed cereal packet...it never used to be the case. There's also a tiresome penchant for churning out endless gory crime thrillers too. However, there was that rather wonderful "Lilies" series that aired on the BBC in early 2007, which certainly seemed to have legs to it but a second series was vetoed for some absurd reason (I think the writer was subsequently posted to "Cranford"/"Lark Rise" etc.) "Lilies" was superb, like the very best of Catherine Cookson with a smattering of early DH Lawrence...the carefully themed episodes were very like MM in fact. Just watching "Lilies" felt like a throwback to the heyday of "Upstairs, Downstairs" ok, a very Brit TV staple and not to everyone's taste, but that was the sort of popular drama we did rather well in the "60s/70s etc.
Does MM make smoking desirable? Nope, I've been a life-long non-smoker and I don't intend to start now. Re my "Make-yourself-a-Mad-Men" icon: that's not a fag in my mouth...that's a breadstick (as seen in Betty and Don's "Roman Holiday" episode...)

Brilliant - like watching paint dry with an electron microscope.

Truly the funniest laugh out loud moment I've had for ages. Thanks Troll.

I thought that I and just one other colleague at work were the only people in the UK who really appreciated Mad Men's understated pace, and frankly I'm suprised that the brilliant Mr Brooker rates it so highly.

@northy666
The spoiler won't 'spoil' it for you.
I watched series' 1 and 2 when broadcast, and now due to work commitments, I am catching up on series 3 (hurrah for set top boxes with hard-drives) - up to episode 3 so far.
BTW - I have an irrational aversion to 666 - (why do some people have to use it as a tag?) - it seems to get everywhere - phone numbers, serial numbers, car registrations etc.
Shit appears to happen to me (usually at a subliminal level, but sometimes really, really serious shit) whenever the number is clocked by me. I celebrate days when I don't see it.

I watched mad men, got really into it through season two and three, but now I'm completely bored by it, and especially bored of Don and Betty's relationship snoozefest. Not a patch on the Wire

I really do wish people don't talk about the show that much: Murdoch might snatch it from the beeb if he knew how popular it was.

That's why I haven't got into the show: the fact that every character has a secret or a dark past and the subsequent realisation that I'm going to have to sit through each one of these personal crisis and feign interest.

That, coupled with the slow pace, cripples it for me. Maybe I've just been watching too much glossy American drama recently. I've watch too many ensemble dramas full of flawed characters with traumatic casts. Even Breaking Bad can be tumultuous at times.

Traumatic pasts* I meant to say, although if we are talking about Damages, the earlier typo would suffice.

Series three has been the weakest, what with the caricature Brits and the somewhat ludicrous back story they gave Roger last week. The use of a song to clinch the end of an episode is becoming a rather obvious touch, too. But this week's episode was excellent. Mad Men is at its best when it revisits relationships or emotional events explored in earlier episodes, as with Roger and Joan.

It seems to have abandoned an important strand in the overall plot, though. Why did competitive, nasty Pete give up trying to out Don?

@KK47

I really do wish people don't talk about the show that much: Murdoch might snatch it from the beeb if he knew how popular it was.

The track record is for Sky/News International to get into things too late: MySpace, Lost.

"House" is the only one (to my mind) where they picked a winner.

I really want to watch Madmen one day, Charlie Brooker has managed to make it sound really good.

@ collar feeler

'fraid you've asked and answered your own post old chap.

People don't tend to talk with such passion and intensity about British drama because they don't tend to feel such passion and intensity.

The fact that you love British drama so much is perfectly wonderful - de gustibus non est disputandem, after all - but to expect, no demand others to share that passion is (like resistance) futile.

Indeed to disdain others for their passion for a form you do not yourself appreciate is, actually, rather disrespectful - not of the form, but of the people who (like you) are entitled to their passions - no matter how incomprehensible you might find them.

Personally, as a lifelong TV junkie - I ended up making a career out of my passion - I find most British drama deathly dull, continental drift slow and (for the most part) entirely too 'kitchen sink' for my own taste.

With the exception of Cracker (which was, in my opinion, arguably one of the best TV shows ever made anywhere in the world) my own taste run to the top end of American drama and run the gambit from The Wire and The West Wing all the way back to the great granddaddy of them all there on Hill Street.

And yes, I can and speak with passion and intensity about all the many varied colours and flavours of the best US TV. Because those dramas provoke those passions and intensities. It really is a rather simple cause and effect after all.

Now, what I don't do is disdain or deny your passion for British drama - even while struggling to share it.

Might you also do those of us that do find pleasure in the US form the same basic courtesy? After all, that is supposed to be a defining characteristic of the British - or is that just a characteristic of the characters in the dramas you adore so much?

.... or you could love
dC

Ya, the last episode of the third season is one of the best continuation episodes I've ever seen. Shame I'm up to date and can't just pop the next episode on.

By the way, have you seen HBO's Big Love? After a slow first season, it just got better and better. It's third season doesn't have a single bad episode in it. Season four got a little silly, but I can't wait for that to start up again in 2011.

charlie- do you ever get sick of all the praise..if you wrote something a la barbara cartland people on here would still say 'great article, charlie'...

the article was ok. well written. it was ok. wouldn't make me fawn over you though, like you were some kind of guru.

i think all the men on here either want to be you, or have gay sex with you.

I've just listened to Radio4's The Reunion, in which six of the people behind Brideshead Revisited came together to chat about the series almost 30 years after it first aired. The series was made by Granada, and largely shot at Castle Howard, owned by the then director-general (?) of the BBC. It won seven Baftas. No one, least of all ITV, could or would try to emulate such a mammoth production today, where 13 hours of lavish production are devoted to one novel. Even at the time, those involved thought the series might be too slow-moving for modern audiences, but I have watched it several times over the years, most recently the year before last, and it stands up really well. The only thing I don't like now is what I didn't like the first time around, namely Julia's ridiculous and overwrought "little sin" speech, but then Waugh was writing with the zeal of the convert and I was watching with the disdain of the rapidly-lapsed. Otherwise, all the Catholic stuff didn't bother me at all. But it is a magnificent series, and it is a pity that we will probably never see the like again, not even from the well-funded BBC.

Speaking as an American, I think you Brits need to pay more attention to some of the top flight drama you guys have produced. I've never visited England, but, from watching some of the gritty real-life gems you guys are so good at producing (Only Fools and Horses, and One Foot in the Grave being my favourites) I've become something of an Anglophile. I'm driving the post man crazy, every day, hounding him for the Holby City box-set I have on order!

Charlie, if you really are prepared to sever digits for a peek at season 4 then I'll wager you wrote some or all of this review shortly after november 8th, 2009.
@dodgycam well put!

Sterling Cooper seemed such a staid charming world and it is interesting to follow the changing and fracturing of the staff?s lives which is not just a metaphor for 60s America just how time?s seamless ebbing affects us all.

Collarfeeler - writing a programme off as 'shite' because its American is xeonophobic and reductionistic. You have clearly never even SEEN Mad Men if you think this literary, intellingent and absorbing show is shite. But whatever, its really your loss.

Collarfeeler - as I'm sure you've noticed, slagging Mad Men is going to get you short shrift in these parts, but it really is very good and I recommend you watch it - nothing like 24 or Lost. Do I take it from your image persona that Ashes To Ashes is an example of the quality BBC produced drama that we should all be passionately discussing? If so, not only is it not in the same ballpark, I'm afraid it's not even playing the same game, as they say.

The thing is, I don't see the BBC buying in quality American (or anywhere else) drama, and producing quality home produced drama as mutually exclusive. Unfortunately the BBC aren't producing much of it, unless you class Spooks, Hotel Babylon and Hustle as such.

I have real Mad Men problems, am in a big bad culture awash with dvd box sets of tv shows minutes after they've aired in their home country so have to sit on my hands to stop myself watching a whole season in one sitting. I savoured season 3 and waited weeks between watching the second last and final episode. Oh man when I finally saw the finale I was exhilarated - I cannot cannot cannot wait for season 4!!!

Oh man when I finally saw the finale I was exhilarated - I cannot cannot cannot wait for season 4!!!

Yes tell me about it! Especially when [Spoiler alert] Joan picks up the phone and purrs professionally the full name of the company. I didn't realise just how much I miss seeing her with the Sterling Cooper gang.

Now I am just hoping hoping hoping Sal would be back in the fold as well. (But perhaps this is just a hope as Lucky Strike is still the key account...)

10: Men are rampant, powerful, yet unreliable.
20: Women, the key to humankind's future, are still Imprisoned behind social constraints, slimming pills, and various levels of abuse.
30: GoTo 10

Repeat x6 Seasons

de gustibus non est disputandem my arse, you pseudo bellend....

So, my illness has a name - 'Passion'. I understand we all like different dramas. I just like mine homegrown. I suppoise I just find it difficult to understand how people can like American drama. A faraway land.

I do get a bit passionate, and I hated The Bill, but what I do like is local output, if you saw a daffodil (I saw a scruffy fella pick a daffodil for what looked like his younger sister today whilst walking) you might like to appreciate it more, more than a flower from another country. Yeah, I have enjoyed the Life on Mars/ Ashes to ashes immensly, and just feel that it has alwas recieved a lukewarm reception here. In the face of the Johnny come lately of drama.

That was all. Most British TV is shite if thats what you're trying to say, but when something decent comes along - you must acknowledge it.

Ah sod it, no point, I shall go and enjoy my own world of homegrown entertainment now.

@ Berzerker

It's "de gustibus non est disputandum" you illiterate oik...