‘Mad Men’ arrives for Christmas
Dear Watchers,Thanksgiving is over, December is upon us, and HBO Max is serving up an ideal binge for the festive month. All seven seasons of “Mad Men,” the acclaimed AMC period drama, have arrived on the service and are streaming in 4K resolution. The series, created by Matthew Weiner, begins in 1960 and centers on Don Draper (Jon Hamm), the creative director at the Madison Avenue ad firm Sterling Cooper. As the seasons progress through the decade, the show chips away slowly at the notion of Don as an ideal of midcentury masculinity as womanizing, repressed men like him grow out of fashion. At the same time, women like Peggy (Elisabeth Moss), who begins the series as Don’s secretary, inch toward actualization in a world that remains deeply sexist. “Mad Men” debuted in 2007, and coverage of it proportionately outpaced its viewership, which remained modest throughout. Much has been written about why it is one of the finest series of the 21st century: It is stylish, layered and often shockingly funny, and it features a host of previously unknown actors doing incredible work. Less obvious: It also makes for a perfect Christmas season watch, even though there are only a handful of Christmas-themed episodes. Those are excellent as well, particularly “Christmas Waltz,” from Season 5, named for the Frank Sinatra song. (The Peggy Lee version is heard in the episode.) But even when “Mad Men” is not explicitly in holiday mode, it evokes earlier wintertime classics. The show sometimes feels like a dark spin on midcentury films like “White Christmas” (1954), in love with the retro fantasia while exposing its dark underbelly. It references Billy Wilder’s “The Apartment” (1960), a film that captures the mix of merriment and melancholy that descends when drunken office parties yield heartbreak. And the ambitious Manhattanites of “Mad Men” recall the Yuletide commercialism criticized in an even earlier work: “Miracle on 34th Street,” from 1947. The series also functions as an origin story for the ads that bombard us as we shop for gifts. It implies that Don conceived one famous Coca-Cola spot. Maybe he would have gone on to dream up those ubiquitous polar bears. More fundamentally, “Mad Men” is infused with a mood many of us feel this time of year, the bittersweetness of nostalgia. So mix yourself an Old Fashioned and cue it up. Also this week
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
