Nitro Video Rating:
PURCHASE THE DVD: Mad Men (2007)

American cabler AMC gets gets further away from the "Movie Classics" in their name by launching their second oriingal scripted series (their last one, "Heist" took out the "American" too as it was a primarily British production). This series concerns an ad agency in the early 1960's and offers an eye opening look at what life and the office was like to members of my post-feminism generation. Everyone smokes like chiminies, the secretary pool is regularly sexually harassed and bedded by the married men in the office and the wives keep themselves busy with the household.

But all is not as it seems with our hero Don Draper (Jon Hamm). For one thing, that's not his real name and he refuses to talk about his past, even to his wife(a very pretty, pitch perfect January Jones). He's also got a little piece on the side in the City (Standoff's Rosemarie DeWitt) and is kissing the new client, a Jew (gasp!) businesswoman (double gasp!), Rachel. Subplots include the scandal of a divorcee (Jerico's Darby Stanchfield) moving into the neighborhood and the seduction of an innocent new secretary (West Wing's Elizabeth Moss), by the the newly married young punk (Angel's Vincent Kartheiser) gunning for Don's job. It's richy shot and well realized, the kind of nuanced drama that would never survive on network TV.