Mad Men

I wanted to reserve judgement on it, and give a more measured opinion, than one just based on a single (the first) episode. I was going to wait till at least five episodes, but after the second on Tuesday (it's on on a Sunday on BBC 4, and Tuesday's on BBC 2), I can't hold my silence any more. Go, clear your telly viewing schedule on one of the days, and watch it. The writer/creator brought it David Chase (The Soprano's) a number of years ago, he liked it so much he told him that he wanted him to work on his own programme. It's only getting broadcast now. It's dark, funny, and works on a number of different levels; race, feminism, masculinity and other issues in the place of work and 1960s America. What more than that do you need? Oh, how about every single male in it constantly smoking? The programme is single handedly making smoking cool again (think about how so few programmes/films made over the last number of years feature people smoking). Here's a taster: