Mad Men
Nostalgia, Don Draper once pointed out in one of his classic sales pitches, means the pain from an old wound. This minutely observed 1960s drama avoided the clichés of historical nostalgia by focusing first on its characters, their own history and their aches. Central among them was Don, who ran from his impoverished childhood, stole a dead man’s identity and became not just a suburban dad but an American archetype of self-reinvention. Set amid the high life and highballs of swellegant Madison Avenue, Mad Men showed how people in the business of creating perceptions come to terms with reality.
