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Mad Men is an American period drama television series created by Matthew Weiner for AMC. It ran from July 19, 2007 until May 17, 2015, with seven seasons and 92 episodes. The series title is allegedly borrowed from the phrase advertisers working on Madison Avenue used to refer to themselves, although the only documented use of the phrase may derive from the late-1950s work of James Kelly, an advertising executive…
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The Rejected (S4x04) Airdate: 15 August 2010 Written by: Keith Huff & Matthew Weiner Directed by: John Slattery Running Time: 48 minutes The fourth season of *Mad Men* arrived with considerable baggage. Following three seasons of near-flawless television that had redefined the prestige drama landscape, the show’s return in November 1974 found the creative team attempting to venture into the new landscape at Sterling…More
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The Good News (S4x03) Airdate: 8 August 2010 Written by: Matthew Weiner & Jonathan Abrahams Directed by: Jennifer Getzinger Running Time: 48 minutes For its first three seasons, *Mad Men* basked in the near-unanimous adoration of critics, who hailed Matthew Weiner’s period drama as a masterpiece of television. Yet, as the fourth season began, a subtle but perceptible shift occurred in the critical consensus. The blo…More
Christmas Comes But Once a Year (S4x02) Airdate: 1 August 2010 Written by: Matthew Weiner & Tracy McMillan Directed by: Michael Uppendahl Running Time: 48 minutes Of all the ways in which the modern conception of Christmas has been hollowed out, few are as thoroughly documented as its utter commercialisation. A holiday that once served as a moment of religious reflection and familial gathering has, in the popular im…More
Public Relations (S4x01) Airdate: 25 November 2010 Written by: Matthew Weiner Directed by: Phil Abraham Running Time: 48 minutes *Mad Men* entered its fourth season from a position of considerable strength. The series had not only survived the departure of key creative figures but had emerged with its critical cachet intact, a status symbolically cemented when President Barack Obama—then at the zenith of his popular…More
Shut the Door. Have a Seat (S3x13) Airdate: 8 November 2009 Written by: Erin Levy & Matthew Weiner Directed by: Matthew Weiner Running Time: 48 minutes The penultimate episode of *Mad Men*’s third season, *The Grown-Ups*, delivered the most seismic “wham” development of the year by brutally juxtaposing the national tragedy of President Kennedy’s assassination with the personal catastrophe of Don Draper’s crumbling m…More
The Grown-Ups (S3x12) Airdate: 1 November 2009 Written by: Brett Johnson & Matthew Weiner Directed by: Barbet Schroeder Running Time: 48 minutes No event depicted or referenced in *Mad Men* was less anticipated by its audience than the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. For many Americans of that era, and particularly for the Baby Boomers who would come to dominate the cultural narrative, 22 November 1963 s…More
The Gypsy and the Hobo (S3x11) Airdate: 25 October 2009 Written by: Marti Noxon, Cathy Humphrys & Matthew Weiner Directed by: Jennifer Getzinger Running Time: 48 minutes *Mad Men*, throughout its run, maintained a meticulous framing of its episodes around specific, identifiable points in time, using the backdrop of history to underscore the personal revolutions of its characters. The show’s third season, however, ra…More
The Color Blue (S3x10) Airdate: 18 October 2009 Written by: Kate Gordon & Matthew Weiner Directed by: Michael Uppendahl Running Time: 48 minutes Within the expansive, seven-season tapestry of *Mad Men*, it was all but inevitable that certain episodes would come to resemble each other in terms of theme, character dynamics, and plot mechanics. Given the series’ intense focus on the cyclical nature of personal history…More
Wee Small Hours (S3x09) Airdate: 11 October 2009 Written by: Dahwi Waller & Matthew Weiner Directed by: Scott Hornbacher Running Time: 48 minutes As the third season of *Mad Men* approaches its conclusion, the episodes begin to exhibit a marked variance in tone and mood, at least where the series’ protagonist, Don Draper, is concerned. The illusion of the all-powerful, invulnerable Don—already fractured by the force…More
Souvenir (S3x08) Airdate: 4 October 2009 Written by: Lisa Albert & Matthew Weiner Directed by: Phil Abraham Running Time: 48 minutes Following the contractual and psychological “wham” event of the previous episode, *Seven Twenty Three*, wherein Don Draper is forcibly signed to a three-year contract, the eighth episode of *Mad Men*’s third season, *Souvenir*, takes a characteristically deliberate approach to storytel…More
Seven Twenty Three (S3x07) Airdate: 27 September 2009 Written by: Andre Jacquemetton, Maria Jaquemetton & Matthew Weiner Directed by: Daisy von Scherler Mayer Running Time: 48 minutes In the first seasons of *Mad Men*, Don Draper featured as an iconic, larger-than-life character who functioned as a personification of the American Dream in its purest form—a man who came from nothing and whose talent for selling image…More
Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency (S3x06) Airdate: 20 September 2009 Written by: Robin Veith & Matthew Weiner Directed by: Leslie Linka Glater Running Time: 48 minutes It is a peculiar and celebrated hallmark of *Mad Men* that whole episodes can drift by in a haze of cigarette smoke and murmured subtext, where the most seismic shifts occur within a character’s glance rather than in the plot. Very little, in the c…More
The Fog (S3x05) Airdate: 13 September 2009 Written by: Kater Gordon Directed by: Phil Abrahan Running Time: 48 minutes The defining strength of series like *Mad Men* lies in their architectural precision. In a narrative landscape often dominated by the shock of grand historical events, Matthew Weiner’s drama excels in its ability to move plots and characters from point A to point B with a clockmaker’s consistency, u…More
The Arrangements (S3x04) Airdate: 6 September 2009 Written by: Andrew Colvile & Matthew Weiner Directed by: Michael Uppendahl Running Time: 50 minutes *Mad Men* is often celebrated as a meticulously crafted window into 1960s America, a series obsessed with a nation nervously facing its future. Yet, some of its most penetrating episodes are those that grapple with the past, illuminating historical periods that were a…More
My Old Kentucky Home (S3x03) Airdate: 30 August 2009 Written by: Dahvi Waller & Matthew Weiner Directed by: Jennifer Getzinger Running Time: 50 minutes *Mad Men* is a series dedicated to charting the profound social and cultural shifts of 1960s America, a transformation that, while appearing rapid in historical retrospect, unfolded with agonising slowness from the perspective of those living through it. To portray t…More
Love Among the Ruins (S3x02) Airdate: 23 August 2009 Written by: Cathryn Humphries & Matthew Weiner Directed by: Leslie Linka Glaser Running Time: 50 minutes The title of the third season’s second episode, “Love Among the Ruins”, is something of a deliberate deception. Borrowed from a Robert Browning poem that dwells on decay amidst ancient rubble, it suggests a narrative of decline, doom, or romantic attachment per…More
Out of Town (S3x01) Airdate: 16 August 2009 Written by: Matthew Weiner Directed by: Phil Abraham Running Time: 48 minutes The second season of *Mad Men* concluded with a narrative gambit that frustrated a not-insignificant portion of its audience: it left its characters, and the viewers, suspended in the palpable dread of the unresolved Cuban Missile Crisis. This choice created a disappointing cliffhanger where the…More
Meditations in an Emergency (S2x13) Airdate: 26 October 2008 Written by: Matthew Weiner & Kater Gordon Directed by: Matthew Weiner Running Time: 48 minutes The second season of *Mad Men* is, by a discernible margin, inferior to its groundbreaking first. This decline is not one of technical execution—the production values remain impeccable, the acting superb—but of conceptual ambition and narrative cohesion. The dimi…More
The Mountain King (S2x12) Airdate: 19 October 2008 Written by: Matthew Weiner & Robin Veith Directed by: Alan Taylor Running Time: 48 minutes In so-called Golden Age of Television, the penultimate episode of a season had begun to assume a particular narrative weight. It was the moment for the ‘wham’—the shocking twist, the devastating confrontation, the point of no return that would propel the story into its finale.…More
The Jet Set (S2x11) Airdate: 12 October 2008 Written by: Matthew Weiner Directed by: Phil Abraham Running Time: 48 minutes As *Mad Men* approached the conclusion of its second season, the series began to strain against the confines of its established narrative format. The eleventh episode, *The Jet Set*, is a pointed example of this tension, directly leaning on the events of its immediate predecessor, *The Inheritan…More
The Inheritance (S2x10) Airdate: 5 October 2008 Written by: Lisa Albert, Marti Noxon and Matthew Weiner Directed by: Andrew Bernstein Running Time: 48 minutes Following the momentous, office-upending events of ?Six Month Leave*, the subsequent instalment, *The Inheritance*, feels deliberately subdued. In typical *Mad Men* fashion, the episode favours slow, methodical character exposition over grand plot developments…More
Six Month Leave (S2x09) Airdate: 28 September 2008 Written by: Matthew Weiner, Andre Jacquemott and Maria Jacquemott Directed by: Michael Uppendahl Running Time: 48 minutes The world of *Mad Men* differs from our own in many details, but one of the most conspicuous is in the different standards and social mores towards drinking, especially drinking on the job. To say that people in the early 1960s were more tolerant…More
A Night to Remember (S2x08) Airdate: 14 September 2008 Written by: Robin Veith & Matthew Weiner Directed by: Leslie Glinka Glatter Running Time: 48 minutes One of the perennial challenges for a television series of *Mad Men*’s calibre is the inevitable narrative ebb and flow; a towering, brilliant episode often casts a long shadow over its immediate successor, making a merely competent instalment appear wan and unin…More
The Gold Violin (S2x07) Airdate: 7 September 2008 Written by: Jane Anderson, Andre Jacquemott, Maria Jacquemott and Matthew Weiner Directed by: Andrew Bernstein Running Time: 48 minutes The second season of *Mad Men* consciously depicts America in 1962 perched at the zenith of its post-war power. It is a moment of unparalleled prosperity and confidence, where President Kennedy’s New Frontier promises a future of lim…More
Maidenform (S2x06) Airdate: 31 August 2008 Written by: Matthew Weiner Directed by: Phil Abraham Running Time: 48 minutes When a television series establishes itself as a paragon of consistent quality, each instalment is held to an almost impossibly high standard. A singular episode that fails to reach this elevated bar stands out as a conspicuous blemish. This is the peculiar curse of *Maidenform*, the sixth episode…More
The New Girl (S2x05) Airdate: 24 August 2008 Written by: Robin Veith Directed by: Jennifer Getzinger Running Time: 48 minutes The so-called Golden Age of Television established a peculiar and remarkable artistic principle: the most prestigious dramas excelled at making the mundane utterly compelling. They demonstrated that a show need not rely on car chases, gunfights, or high-stakes melodrama to captivate; instead,…More
Three Sundays (S2x04) Airdate: 17 August 2008 Written by: Andre Jacquemott & Maria Jacquemott Directed by: Tim Hunter Running Time: 48 minutes The structural rhythm of *Mad Men* has often been described as episodic vignette, a series of finely observed “day in the life” slices that advance the overarching plot with deliberate, often glacial, slowness. Each episode typically confines itself to a narrow temporal windo…More
The Benefactor (S2x03) Airdate: 10 August 2008 Written by: Matthew Weiner & Rick Cleveland Directed by: Leslie Glinka Glatter Running Time: 48 minutes Matthew Weiner’s choice to depict the tumultuous decade of the 1960s from the perspective of advertising industry executives and employees proved to be an exceptionally astute creative decision. These individuals were not merely passive observers of momentous cultural…More
Flight 1 (S2x02) Airdate: 3 August 2008 Written by: Lisa Albert & Matthew Weiner Directed by: Andrew Bernstein Running Time: 48 minutes The narrative pace of *Mad Men* was famously, often agonisingly, glacial. Matthew Weiner’s meticulous period drama preferred the slow burn of character revelation and ambient social tension to conventional plot propulsion. This deliberate tempo was, however, periodically shattered b…More
For Those Who Think Young (S2x01) Airdate: 27 July 2008 Written by: Matthew Weiner Directed by: Tim Hunter Running Time: 48 minutes As *Mad Men* embarks upon its second season, it remains steadfast in a narrative pace that many contemporary viewers—accustomed to the relentless momentum of modern television—would describe as glacial. Yet this deliberate tempo is not a flaw but a deliberate aesthetic, one that the ser…More
The Wheel (S1x13) Airdate: 18 October 2007 Written by: Matthew Weiner & Robin Veith Directed by: Matthew Weiner Running Time: 52 minutes In the contemporary landscape of prestigious television drama, a now‑common structural gambit sees the season’s most defining, explosive moments reserved for the penultimate episode. This practice, whilst often delivering a powerful immediate punch, carries a significant risk: the…More
Nixon vs. Kennedy (S1x12) Airdate: 11 October 2007 Written by: Lisa Albert, Albert Jaquemetton & Maria Jacquemetton Directed by: Alan Taylor Running Time: 48 minutes When Matthew Weiner, having cut his teeth on the late, groundbreaking seasons of *The Sopranos*, unveiled *Mad Men* in 2007, critics were quick to recognise the profound influence of HBO’s pioneering drama on his own creation. This extended beyond mere…More
Indian Summer (S1x11) Airdate: 27 September 2007 Written by: Tom Palmer & Matthew Weiner Directed by: Tim Hunter Running Time: 46 minutes The first season of *Mad Men* is rightly celebrated as one of the finest pieces of television drama ever produced, a masterclass in character study and period atmosphere. Almost every episode is very good, yet some inevitably rank higher than others in the collective critical memo…More
Long Weekend (S1x10) Airdate: 20 September 2007 Written by: Bridget Bedard, Andre Jacquemetton, Maria Jacquemetton & Matthew Weiner Directed by: Tim Hunter Running Time: 47 minutes In the often cynical world of television production, a persistent adage suggests that a large number of scriptwriters is a harbinger of creative compromise and diluted quality, a symptom of committee-driven storytelling that inevitably sa…More
Shoot (S1x09) Airdate: 13 September 2007 Written by: Chris Provenzano & Matthew Weiner Directed by: Paul Feig Running Time: 47 minutes *Mad Men* has long been celebrated for its meticulous and authentic portrayal of a period that lies well beyond the living memory of not only its target audience but also most of its creators. This striving for historical realism manifested itself not merely in the careful curation o…More
The Hobo Code (S1x08) Airdate: 6 September 2007 Written by: Chris Provenzano Directed by: Phil Abraham Running Time: 47 minutes *Mad Men* established its multi-layered narrative genius by repeatedly using the past to elucidate the present, a technique nowhere more deftly employed than in the first season’s eighth episode, *The Hobo Code*. This instalment, one of the more memorably nuanced of the nascent series, prov…More
Red in the Face (S1x07) Airdate: 30 August 2007 Written by: Bridget Bedard Directed by: Tim Hunter Running Time: 47 minutes The inaugural season of *Mad Men* is a piece of television that doesn’t have much of a plot, and serves mostly to introduce the audience to this strange setting and characters. Indeed, across the first six episodes, the audience learns that hardly anything of conventional dramatic consequence o…More
Babylon (S1x06) Airdate: 23 August 2007 Written by: Matthew Weiner Directed by: Leslie Linka Glatter Running Time: 47 minutes *Mad Men* is a series that richly rewards its viewers, but it does so selectively. Its appeal is often reserved for those with a predilection for period drama and the patience to be ultimately rewarded by its slow-burn character studies. *Babylon*, the sixth episode of the first season, stand…More
5G (S1x05) Airdate: 16 August 2007 Written by: Matthew Weiner Directed by: Leslie Linka Glatter Running Time: 48 minutes In the seemingly static, orderly, and conservative world of early 1960s America that *Mad Men* so meticulously constructs, the line separating triumph from disaster is perilously thin. Lives, no matter how carefully arranged, can be upended by the whims of fate and mere coincidence. This is the ce…More
New Amsterdam (S1x04) Airdate: 9 August 2007 Written by: Lisa Albert Directed by: Tim Hunter Running Time: 46 minutes The American Dream, that enduring national mythos which promises that anyone, through sheer grit and determination, can ascend the social ladder, has always been more fiction than fact. America, despite its foundational rhetoric, was constructed upon a bedrock of entrenched divisions—not merely those…More
Marriage of Figaro (S1x03) Airdate: 2 August 2007 Written by: Tom Palmer Directed by: Ed Bianchi Running Time: 42 minutes The world, as we are so often reminded, is in a perpetual state of flux, yet popular memory frequently ossifies the past into a monolith of static conformity. *Mad Men*’s genius, established from its very first frames, is to depict the ultra-conformist cultural stasis of Eisenhower’s America not…More
Ladies Room (S1x02) Airdate: 26 July 2007 Written by: Matthew Weiner Directed by: Alan Taylor Running Time: 47 minutes If there remained any doubt among first-time viewers following the series premiere, *Mad Men* in its second episode, *Ladies Room*, makes it abundantly clear that the pace of its plot is going to be glacial. In some ways, this is to be expected from Matthew Weiner’s work. Based on his prior contribu…More
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes (S1x01) Airdate: 19 July 2007 Written by: Matthew Weiner Directed by: Alan Taylor Running Time: 49 minutes An argument can be made, and indeed has been persuasively advanced by critics and historians of the medium, that what we now reflexively term the ‘Golden Age of Television’ actually began in the summer of 2007 on the relatively unassuming AMC network with the debut of *Mad Men*. Its firs…More
Source Recently I have been revisiting one of my favorite series: Mad Men, a few days ago I shared with you a short post in which I praised its pilot episode and in general I am amazed at its quality, although I know it will happen and it is difficult to be surprised by its content, the Mathew Weiner's creation is so dense that many elements of it look quite fresh. Source I knew the series being relatively young, I…More
Mad Men: Joan Holloway, A Subversive VenusMore