I forced myself to finish the pilot. None of the characters were likable, which is fine since they're a bunch of pretentious douchebags, but I didn't find them interesting either.
I didn't go into the show blind myself, so I'm not actually sure how the first few episodes play out to the completely uninitiated, but I'll share the detail that made me initially really interested to see what happens in the show. It's not revealed until late in the first season, I believe, but knowing it from the get-go was enough to make me want to see it all the way through. And, in seeing it all the way through, I became hooked by all of its other facets as well.
The spoiler:
Don Draper actually isn't Don Draper.
He served in the Korean War with a man named Don Draper, but when that guy was killed in an explosion, he switched his dog tags with him so that it would appear that he had died. Apparently he wasn't a fan of his old life.
So basically he's been living a lie, using the real Don Draper's accomplishments (like having gone to college, for example) to further his own life.
I just found that totally interesting when I heard it, and it made me want to watch the show from the start.
Make no mistake, it's not some kind of slam-bang, thrill-a-minute, twist-in-every-episode kind of show. Its characters are realistic , and they deal with problems that people actually would have back then. They aren't quite as sensationalized as most other shows would handle it all.
But at the same time, that means that it certainly has some of the most rounded characters ever to appear on television. Seriously, no one is one-dimensional. Everyone has their good points, everyone has their faults. And the writing is actually kind of incredible for juggling so many characters and making them all so deep. There's a lot (and I mean a lot ) of great, subtle humor throughout as well. And John Hamm has easily some of the greatest screen presence of any actor working in tv today (trust me, he'll grown on you in a huge way).
It may start a little slow, but I think that as a writer yourself, it'd probably be worth it to you to give it an extended chance sometime.
I'm almost never a fan of "drama" in general, without some sort of qualifying factor added in ("crime drama" for example). But Mad Men is just so good that I make an exception. A huge exception, since it's easily a favorite of mine right now.