Title Mad men. Season one [(DVD) videorecording] / Lions Gate Television Inc. ; created by Matthew Weiner.

This show is incredibly seductive, which is somewhat hard to explain, considering the fact that most of the characters are unlikeable, or at least disagreeable in some way. The plot does string you along like a tempting advertisement, suggesting the next storyline that's just out of reach. There is a depth to the writing that helps to twist the characters: no one's motives are quite clear-cut, and they develop into different people than you initially expected. The look of the show is stylish, set in the early 1960s in a swirl of cocktail dresses, nightclubs and Old Manhattan; it's an intoxicating sweep into a past era (literally – no one is ever without a drink in hand, especially not at the office!) It's an unenlightened era, though, and it's squirm-inducing to watch such blatant sexism (on both sides – men in the office bottom-pinching or making offhanded degrading comments to the secretaries, and the housewives in Westchester County judging a new divorcee in the neighborhood). Still, the suave assurance of main character Don Draper, ad man and Mad Man extraordinaire, definitely captures the imagination, even as he hides his own secrets and battles it out in the war of office politics at the Sterling Cooper agency. In some ways this is a sophisticated soap opera. It's well-written, well-acted (for the most part; the actress playing Betty Draper is clearly getting by on her looks), intense and intelligent. It'll drive you mad waiting for the next installment.