Mad Men

[Bluecast]

Yet another AMC show. This one IMO is the best of the crop. If you have not seen it yet you must start from season 1 or else you won;t get all of it. Not hard to follow or anything. You can catch the first 5 seasons on Netflix ans Season 6 premieres April 7th. To me this might be the most well made show in TV today.

[Sailors?]

On it.

[Yama]

With TWD, The Killing and Breaking Bad on hiatus I suppose now is as good a time as ever. Could yet a fourth AMC series hook me? We'll see.

[Kenny]

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 want to give it another go but I don't want to fall into another Walking Dead "it's boring, now it's good, now it's boring again" trap.

[Bluecast]

Don Draper is awesome. The show is never boring. The show is really a no holds barred look on the male dominated sexism,racism,adultery and liquor filled offices of the time. It's pretty accurate as well. While it has that the writing is really good and well acted. Don while arrogant and sleeps around,he does show fairness a lot as well and has a great back story which they show later. Peter is a dick and gets his a few times. Peggy grows as a character. You will see some faces change. Betty is good as well. Roger is a dick but sometimes you love em but more often want to punch him yet keep watching. Joan well as much as I love CH,she is mainly there for eye candy until later they give her more. The show is more a slice of life series with these characters in that time period.

[OL]

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.

[TwiceFriedRice]

I think Breaking Bad is better, but Mad Men is not far behind. They're both my two favorite shows of all-time.

And great post OL. Summed up my thoughts perfectly.

[Bluecast]

I went into the show blind and it started slow as OL says but that reveal which I was talking about and OL tells in detail is the same reason that hooked me into the show. Everything OL said is 100% true. To me it's the best show on TV right now.

[Kenny]

I'll take all your advice to heart then and revisit it in the future.

[Who Really Cares?]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfU8H_y69fY[/youtube]

[Bluecast]

Jon Hamm is a cool guy but what's with the hipster scarf?

[QWERTY]

I love this show! Really is such a great program. I can appreciate its not to everyone's taste due to having a bit less obvious pizazz than other dramas set in supposedly more interesting circumstances but the characters are so well written and the storylines unfold much more subtly, so when a big twist in the plot occurs it creates a far greater impact than most other shows.

Plus; Christina Hendricks.

Jon Hamm is a cool guy but what's with the hipster scarf?

Yeah, what's up with that? I think he'd look much cooler in a Sonic the Hedgehog tshirt.

[Bluecast]

No he would look better with down syndrome ass chaps

[QWERTY]

No he would look better with down syndrome ass chaps

Whatever floats your boat, dude.

[Bluecast]

No he would look better with down syndrome ass chaps

Whatever floats your boat, dude.

I'm not the one who uses that avatar. Nor talks about raping peoples mothers and hoping they die.