Mad Men - Complete Season 1 [DVD] [2007]

RRP: £29.99
Our Price: £12.04 (subject to change)

Editorial
Amazon.co.uk Review

Welcome to a world where Monday has a three drink minimum. Mad Men exists here and it's a fabulous place to visit, back before Betty Friedan's Feminine Mystique really made much of an impact and before there were health warnings on cigarettes. It was an America on the brink of social explosion and Mad Men, which tells the story of a group of Madison Avenue advertising executives in the early 1960s, captures that surface stillness perfectly, complete with the growing tension barely contained below the surface. The show succeeds on every level. HBO famously passed on Mad Men, created by former Sopranos executive producer and writer Matthew Weiner. AMC picked it up, and thank goodness they did. From the first episode, season one becomes an essential, utterly addictive television-watching experience. Beautifully filmed and masterfully written, the show manages to present the period honestly but with little nostalgia, and as soon as you get over the constant smoking, drinking and treatment of women as little more than "girls" who get coffee and answer the phone, the complexity of these characters (especially the dashing Jon Hamm as Creative Director Don Draper) will leave you completely captivated. Season one features clandestine office romances, shadowy pasts, a ton of adultery, closeted homosexuality and a lot more drama that seems risqué even now. But again, one of the most impressive things about Mad Men is that everything is executed with absolute class, style and elegance. A bonus for the DVD viewer is that, like The Sopranos, Mad Men has a ton of little moments and hints leading up to character revelations and plot twists that make watching the episodes over and over continually rewarding. –-Kira Canny

Excellent series
Review date: 2010-08-02 Rating: 10 out of 10

Excellent TV series based on the advertising world in late 50s and early 60s. More than anything else it provides a glimpse of how corporate life was in that era.

Took me a while to get the hang of it but since then I have been hooked - Just finished watching Series 3.

Buy the boxset, sit back and re-live the old days!!!

Reviews

The Good Old Days
Review date: 2010-06-29 Rating: 10 out of 10

The sets and clothes and hairstyles are so realistic it's like going back in time. It's a glamorous world if you're lucky enough to be part of it, but human foibles remain the same.

The most noticeable thing was the vast amount of smoking that goes on, along with copious amounts of drinking at all times of the day, in the office and out. Also, most women are there simply to look good and keep their men happy and the only non-whites are in menial jobs. You can even clip any old unruly child round the ear and the parent supports you for doing it. It's a different world, but oh-so-realistic of what went on before we all became more enlightened and P.C.

The lead man, Don, is as cool as they come, and has no qualms about having a few bits on the side despite having a gorgeous wife. The supporting males in the office add to the mix, as do the many glamorous office girls who're hoping to land a mad man. A special mention has to go to Joanie, the voluptuous office manageress, who must be one of the coolest, sexiest chicks on tv. She glides effortlessly around the office, looks great and is tougher than most of the men.

There are no cliffhanger episodes, but it's not that type of show. It's all about character interaction and how their lives slowly develop. Absolutely facinating, so I hope its not cut short in its prime, like so many great, but low rating US shows.

Simply the Best
Review date: 2010-06-19 Rating: 10 out of 10

Why can't we Brits produce TV drama of this quality? Great characters, tight dialogue, good acting, humour, drama, it's got it all. It even looks fantastic. Best thing on TV for years.

Beautifully tense....
Review date: 2010-05-08 Rating: 10 out of 10

Incredibly well researched, this is a beautiful drama bubbling with a tension which really captures the era. Mad Men is overwhelmingly uncomfortable to watch for those of us who were brought up in an age defined by both political correctness and economic change - not only is this a chauvinistic, homophobic world defined by men, it is a world of capitalism, consumerism and greed. And yet it is exactly this which makes this so watchable.

The series revolves around an ad agency on Madison Avenue in the 60s, and its strength lies in the slow building of the characters who inhabit this shady world of cigarette sales and illicit office liasons. The central tenet of the series is office politics as the "Mad Men" vie for advertising sales of products which define the 60s,ranging from the first disposable diapers to the carousel slide projector. Set against a backdrop of an America on the edge, we are treated to original footage from, for example, the Kennedy/Nixon election campaign. We are left in no doubt that this is an accurate portrayal of a world which now seems so out of touch: where smoking and drinking to excess in the office is normal, where women are objectified and dismissed (pre 60s feminism at its most disquieting), where the billboard presentation of a sinister American Dream shaped by mass production is as much a facade as that presented by many of the characters to their nearest and dearest on a daily basis.

And it is this which keeps you hooked: there is a gripping sense of something disturbing lying just under the surface - as it does with so many of its characters- and we are never very sure when the explosion will happen. It is very real, very unsettling and above all, a harsh reminder that we have a long way to go before we can really leave behind the legacies of this era.

It's a mad mad world!
Review date: 2010-01-22 Rating: 10 out of 10

Subtle! That's the word that best describes Mad Men. The writing is superb, the actors are pitch perfect, and the setting is the unbelievable world of advertising in the 60s when everyone smoked their way through the day, drank long before the sun went down over the yardarm, when women were kept in the typing pool or the bedroom (or a heady mix of both). In fact, you might say, what's changed other than the workers huddled in doorways puffing their way to an early death. I'm waiting for series two with bated breath!
Mary Burnham

Product Details/Specifications

Actor(s):
Jon Hamm
January Jones
Elisabeth Moss
Vincent Kartheiser
John Slattery

Creators:
Jon Hamm (Primary Contributor)
January Jones (Primary Contributor)

Director(s):

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Recording label: Lions Gate Home Entertainment
Manufacturer: Lions Gate Home Entertainment
EAN: 5060052415080
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 3
Format: Colour, PAL, Widescreen,
Release date: 2008-06-30
Aspect ratio: 16:9 - 1.77:1
Audience rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
Region code: 2
Running time: 592 minutes
Theatrical release date: 2007