‘Mad Men’ Appeal: Now and Then

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What is the attraction to AMC’s  returning hit TV series “Mad Men?”

Is it the vintage clothes and veiled morals?  The endless stream of smoking cigarettes and booze which ironically are taboo in our more permissive age?  Is it the sexual innuendo of glamor, glances and  gaits?

Despite the confusion and lack of credibility surrounding TV ratings, suffice it to say a lot of  people watched the series Sunday premiere. Nielsen Media reports viewers jumped one-third to nearly 3 million.  As Fred Kaplan recently observed in The New York Times, “Mad Men” has become one of those shows whose cultural weight exceeds the size of its audience.

But why?

Although the writing, acting and production pale by comparison to a bellwether like “West Wing, ” Mad Men” is better than most prime time television drama. Who can resist creating your own “Mad Men” avatar (already half  a million downloads) and a 1960s cocktail guide on the series’ official web site? The new media world lends its own bit of fun to the party from the “Mad Men” video contest launched on Twitter for a guest shot on the show to Don Draper’s Facebook page.

Season three has fostered at least a half dozen stylish, shrewd advertiser tie-ins from Clorox (removing lipstick from their shirt collars for generations) to The Banana Republic.

There is something satisfying about watching greed and lust play out in a less complicated black-and white  world involving well-coiffed characters that look a lot like yellowing photos of your parents or grandparents. It was a measured world from which the Woodstock generation made a break with wildly different looks and sounds. The contrast of then and now should help Generations Y and Z better  understand why 1960s frayed blue jeans and untamed tresses, wrangling music and liberal mores were considered heretical.

Fast forward five or ten years from now. Will today’s connected cyber  life be fodder for a nostalgic millennium drama? We don’t appear to be hiding much these days between our electric footprints, tweets and e-transactions, GPS tracking and pretend privacy. The intrigue is more about using technology than about human relationships.

Will cyber soap ever seem as good as today’s vintage voyeurism? Maybe if you call it “Mad Mac.”