Considered to be one of the greatest television dramas of all time, the 1960s set-piece Mad Men is finally coming to an end. Following Don Draper, an excellent ad man in New York City, the show travels from 1960 to 1970 throughout its seven seasons.
Adopting their very successful last season strategy from Breaking Bad, the final season was split into two parts. The first part of the final season aired last year, and the last seven episodes are currently airing. Spawning the careers of Jon Hamm, Elizabeth Moss, Christina Hendricks, and January Jones, as one of the most influential television shows of the century, it truly is an end of an era.
In the plans of exploring original programming, Mad Men was picked up by AMC as the first original drama series back in 2007. Soon to be followed by Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead, it didn’t take AMC long to find an audience. Upon its release, Mad Men was lauded by critics. Wining a total of 15 Emmys and four Golden Globes, the show won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama for each of its first four seasons.
The show’s era also saw a resurgence of style and culture at the time through many forms of entertainment. From the revival of How to Succeed in Buisness Without Trying to a new musical adapting Catch Me If You Can to the short lived 1960’s set television shows, The Playboy Club and Pan Am, the influence cannot be denied. The show’s fame even went to the extent of being a source of renewed interest of the early 1960s fashion, with Banana Republic even carrying its own Mad Men line. Christina Hendricks, known for playing the always well-dressed office manager, Joan Halloway, spoke to the significance of the show’s setting.
“Because we got to play a decade, we would sort of highlight something political or something societal that was going on. To me it felt like this energy of seeing this change, and having people have a strong opinion and a cause. And many people did not, of course, but that seems to have shifted. People going out there and feeling so strongly about a specific cause, I still think of that as the 1960s. I think a lot of people do still think of that at a time of a great deal of change,” Hendricks said.
Along with the series’ portrayal of the time period, Mad Men is riddled with characters that are incredibly complicated yet very real. Jon Hamm’s portrayal of Don Draper, as the successful ad man with a secret past, has been a main source of providing a flawed yet captivating protagonist. The significant changes that occur within his positions at Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency to his personal life and family, provides the greatest representation of how time constantly changes one’s self, on television.
In addition, seeing Peggy Olson and Joan Halloway, the two prominent women within the agency and how their importance and status within the workplace transforms, is just as captivating. Through completely different tactics, both Joan and Peggy are able to achieve in a male dominated workforce. From the defining pitches that presents the ultimate tie between the creative process of such a campaign and the emotional connection of the character’s situation, the series’ complexity will allow many to interpret the show for years to come.
The show also started the rise of Jon Hamm, from a relatively unknown actor to a household known celebreity. Now having hosted SNL multiple times and featured in multiple comedies including Bridesmaids, 30 Rock, and Parks and Recreation. One must wonder if Hamm will now pursue comedy. Whether he does or decides to continue being in more serious pieces, Hamm spoke to how it feels to leave a show that has defined his entire career.
“Are people still going to take me seriously? Am I just going to do romantic comedies for the rest of my life? What’s next? And I don’t know, you know? I wish I was smug enough to have had a grand plan. I guess some people would say, ‘Okay, the last three years of Mad Men is going to be like this: I want to do a play. I want to do this. I want to do that.’ I was just like, ‘I want to do something that seems cool,” Hamm said.
Having finished filming the last seven episodes of the series last summer, the show’s creator and writer for the majority of the series, Matthew Weiner, spoke to how it felt finally leaving the last day of shooting.
“Leaving that office after seven years where I wrote 95% of the show, with the exception of a few afternoons in other locations, and met all these amazing people, and hired so many people, and fired people, and met some of my idols — so much had happened in there. Driving home by myself at the end of that, that was where all the feelings were,” Weiner said.
Leaving a legacy of astounding drama, moments of shock, and a laugh or two on its journey through a decade, Mad Men as it finishes up in the next five weeks to decades later, will be looked upon as an undeniably important piece of television. Just as the show will be ending in the beginning of a new era (the 1970s), so will the state of Television drama.
-Dan Vruno