Nine (& ½) things I love about 'Mad Men'

I'm just mad about "Mad Men." And I know I'm not the only one. The AMC dramatic series, adored by viewers and critics alike, began its second season this week. The show has already received two Golden Globes and a Peabody, and has been nominated for 16 Emmys.

Set in the early '60s, it revolves around characters in a New York City ad agency.

It's quality television, a very welcome respite from those highly unrealistic reality shows. Sophisticated and complex, this quality show renews your faith in TV.

Well, in cable TV, at least.

If you haven't seen it, you should check it out. It airs 10 p.m. Sundays on AMC. (Check listings for repeat airings.) If you missed the first season, it's now available on DVD, cleverly packaged as an oversized silver cigarette lighter, as virtually everyone on the show smokes like a fiend. (Hey, it was the era.)

In anticipation and celebration of the show's second season, I sat down and tried to figure out just why I'm so crazy about it. Here are 9 ½ things I love about "Mad Men":

1. It deals with people who work with words and images for a living.

We all like to see ourselves on the screen, stage or page.

Actors love shows about actors. Cops watch cop shows.

Artists watch movies about painters.

I'm not in advertising, but like the Mad Men of the show, I too work with ideas, words and images.

It's not necessarily an ego thing. I think we all like to feel that we're seen, acknowledged. And part of us wants to see if they'll get it right while another part of us secretly hopes maybe we'll learn something, or be inspired.

2. The show was initially offered to HBO and Showtime, but turned down by both.

This runaway hit was first offered to two major cable channels - and inexplicably, both turned it down.

Their loss is AMC's gain.

Which just goes to show, if you have a great idea/book proposal/screenplay/song/ play, hold fast to it and believe in it, no matter what others may say. Keep the faith.

Sometimes the experts are wrong.

3. "Mad Men" doesn't glamorize the era.

The temptation in doing a period piece is to sugarcoat the past, present it as an ideal time. But this series doesn't shrink from revealing the negative aspects of the era: the blatant racism, anti-Semitism, homophobia and sexism.

Betty Draper, wife of creative director Don Draper, had a lucrative modeling job, but gave it up when she met Don. Now she's in the suburbs, dying on the vine. She doesn't know why she feels so dissatisfied. (And it wasn't until 1963 that Betty Friedan wrote "The Feminine Mystique" about "the problem that has no name.")

4. Yet, "Mad Men" shows the glamour of the time.

And what a glamorous time it was. The dresses, the gloves, stockings and garter belts! The dapper men looking so sharp in their suits and hats, their crisp white shirts and skinny ties! And while we all know smoking causes cancer and is one of the most un-sexiest activities around, there's just something so sexy about seeing these men and women smoking in a nightclub, flirting and bantering, the smoke rising up in wispy curlicues like jazz notes from a saxophone.

5. "Mad Men" gets the details right.

Often shows set in the '50s or '60s get some things right, but it all looks too brand new or shiny. Not authentic, somehow. "Mad Men" gets it right, and it has to do with paying attention to details.

The first season was set in 1960; creator and executive producer Matthew Weiner has said he made sure that everything wasn't brand new, because that's not how life is. When a new decade begins, we don't automatically throw out everything from the previous decade. So some characters have outfits and hairstyles from the '50s, and the furniture looks as though it's been lived with.

6. The scripts are great.

This isn't typical television writing. This is layered writing more along the lines of "The Sopranos," Homicide: Life on the Streets" and "The Wire."

"Mad Men" has style and substance.

7. There's humor, in addition to all the drama.

It's not set-up, set-up, joke, the way sitcoms are written. What gets me is the unintentional humor - the things that the characters say or do that we, today, find humorous, because we have the advantage of hindsight. For example, the belief that Nixon was going to beat Kennedy.

Then there's the fact they cast Robert Morse as head of the agency. Why is this funny? In the 1961 Broadway musical (and 1967 film) "How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying," Morse portrays a window washer who plots and charms his way up the corporate ladder.

8. The music is fabulous.

"Mad Men" plays the music of the era: Ella Fitzgerald singing "Manhattan," Rosemary Clooney performing "Botch-a-Me," the Andrew Sisters harmonizing on "Volare." Then there's Vic Damone's version of "On the Street Where You Live," reminding us that there used to be a time when Broadway songs were regularly covered by the popular singers of the day.

And could there be anything more lovely than Julie London singing "Fly Me to the Moon (In Other Words)" ?

The incidental music by the show's musical director, David Carbonara, is wonderful and on-target.

This is a time when rock has not yet taken over the world, and the British Invasion is still in the wings.

I love the music from the "Mad Men" era, period.

(But I have to confess, as much as I loved watching the office workers cha-cha on the dance floor, I loved it when "The Twist" played at a party, and everyone went crazy dancing the new dance.)

9. The women on the show are fascinating characters.

I know, I know, the show is called "Mad Men." Emphasis on the men.

And it's the men who have been getting the lion's share of the attention and awards. Three of the male actors are up for Emmys. And Jon Hamm had received a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor. I don't begrudge him at all; he's talented.

But I wouldn't want to hang out with any of the male characters. They lie, they cheat on their wives. They're overgrown adolescents, with an adolescent's attitude toward women. (The character Pete Campbell, for example, looks and acts like he's 12 years old.)

It's the women who are the more complex, fascinating characters.

I realized this when I tried to come up with a concise description of the show for a friend and began talking about all the strong, interesting female characters and their struggles.

And then I laughed, realizing I hadn't yet mentioned one man.

It reminded me of an interview with playwright Paula Vogel that I read recently in David Savran's "The Playwright's Voice." Vogel said: "…I think that women have been trained to empathize with male subjects, so we are always translating our personal response from one gender to the other. Men have not learned how to empathize directly with a female character. They're constantly looking for a male subject. They don't know how to translate their empathy. So if you have a female subject, they will say, 'You know the secondary male character, why don't you make him the protagonist?' They see the whole journey through him, whereas women see the journey through women's eyes."

9 ½. That "Mad Men" contest.

It's not part of the show itself, though the "Mad Men" contest, being held online (blogs. amctv.com/mad-men-contest/) will determine a winner for a walk-on role in the series. Contestants can choose from six different characters and present a one-minute-or-less video of themselves delivering lines from the show. Viewers vote and leave comments.

One of my early favorites was Justin Zell, a robust, bearded man, who's contributed multiple videos, including the women. Just hysterical. But then, professional actor Don Pugsley submitted an excellent noir-ish video, shot in black and white (and edited by a 14-year-old boy!), where he delivers Betty Draper's lines as a male.

While this contest demonstrates that there are a lot of people who think they can act (and can't), it also shows that there's a lot of talent out there.

And it's great to see the show and its creators have such a sense of humor about themselves.