Mad Men is a popular American TV series, created and produced by Matthew Weiner. The series premiered on AMC in July 2007 and completed its forth series at the end of October last year. The forth series of Mad Men is now available on DVD and contains 13 episodes.
The series is set at the fictional Madison Avenue advertising agency Sterling Cooper which is located in New York City, although later on in the story the firm moves to the newly established Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. The series focuses on Don Draper, played by Jon Ham, who is a creative directory at Sterling Cooper and eventually a founding partner at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce. The series revolves around his life, both in the office and outside of, paying particular attention to the moods and attitudes of 1960s America.
The series has been well received with critics and has won many awards, including most famously thirteen Emmys and four Golden Globes. Mad Men was also the first basic cable series to be awarded with the Emmy Award for Outstanding Drama series, a rare feat which it managed to procure in 2008, 2009 and 2010.
For those interested in taking a look back at what American life was like in 1960s America, there is no greater introduction and insight than Mad Men. Smoking, driving, sexism, feminism, adultery and racism are all major themes throughout the series, all of which are touched on quite strong. Smoking for example, which was commonly accepted in the United States during the 60s when it was set is seen from a very casual viewpoint – nearly all of the characters smoke, and it isn’t often that there isn’t someone smoking a cigarette on screen. Lucky Strike is also featured within the pilot episode and discussion centres on a new article from Reader’s Digest which has suggested that smoking may lead to various diseases including lung cancer.
The first season of Mad Men attracted 900,000 viewers although this figure soon doubled during the second season which was heavily promoted. According to data from Nielsen Media, 1.75 million viewers watched the Sunday night’s season finale. In total, the cumulative audience for the three airings of the episode on that night was just under three million people.
Product placement was a huge feature within the series, fittingly since the series focused on a marketing firm. Heineken, Cadillac, Gilette, American Airlines and Clearasil are all featured within the series, while retro commercials for Dove, Vaseline, Hellman’s and Suave were all used to promote the fourth season of the series.
The DVD for Season 4 of Man Men will be released on March 28th this year.
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