"Mad Men" is the Definitive TV Drama of our Time

Jessica Pare and Jon Hamm  (wetpaint)

Cable upstart AMC's crown jewel "Mad Men" has just concluded yet another quietly astonishing fifth season.

It is no surprise that the show has won the Primetime Emmy Award for Best Drama Series for each of the four seasons it has been broadcast.

Despite the stylistic discrepancies, MM is occasionally compared to that other cable favorite, HBO's "The Sopranos", whose conclusion dovetailed nicely with the introduction of MM. While both are well-written ensemble dramas set in the workplace, that is where the similarities end. "The Sopranos" was often inspired and consistently well-acted, if somewhat less reliably insightful. At times the metaphor of the New Jersey mafia milieu as a microcosm of contemporary society was lost amidst the show's troublingly offensive portrayal of suburban Italian-American life, not to mention its distractingly pointless, gratuitously homophobic trajectory.

The offense quotient did nothing but detract from the otherwise fine work of the writers, actors, and directors of the celebrated series. Where MM can similarly be charged with sexism, the subservient portrayal of women both in and our of the office is both plausible and unobtrusive, as it serves the story, and the verisimilitude of the 60s setting of the show would otherwise be in jeopardy. It's no surprise then that the prominent female characters, particularly the compelling Elisabeth Moss and the fascinating Christina Hendricks, are such rich, complex creations.

After five consistently acclaimed seasons, it is clear that MM is well on its way to becoming the definitive TV drama of its era. It's hard to recall a series that has generated so much influence, from its stunning period costumes (Banana Republic, anyone?) to the dissection of its corporate philosophy to its spot-on sociological observations that just seem to increasingly resonate in our turbulent times, 50 years after the setting of the show.

Other actors deserve notice for their reliably compelling work, particularly protagonist Jon Hamm and wonderful character actor Jared Harris. Even the predictably irksome character played by Vincent Kartheiser is fine, as is newcomer Ben Feldman, as the token Jewish employee at SCDP. While it is true that minorities are otherwise in short supply, that is probably closer to historical accuracy than a political statement or a deliberate slight. After all, is not the sin of omission committed by MM somewhat less offensive than the denigration of Italian-Americans and gays in "The Sopranos"?