HBO Max isn’t a streamer. It’s a carousel, and it lets us travel the way a child travels. It goes backwards, forwards, takes us where we ache to go: Back to the comforting arms of Don Draper.
Mad Men finally has a streaming home for the poor, unfortunate souls that don’t have a Blu-ray player or an AMC+ account. Matt Weiner’s mid-century masterpiece about the world’s most mysterious ad man will arrive in sterling (Cooper, Draper, Price) 4K next month. This is the first time Mad Men will be available in the format, providing television viewers with the best possible resolution for arguably the greatest dramatic TV series ever made (many apologies to All’s Fair).
Perhaps even more exciting than the 4K is that Mad Men finally has a home on a streaming service people actually use. For the last decade, it has bounced around Amazon’s low-tier services, like IMDb TV, where it’s been subject to inconsistent, bizarre commercial breaks, before landing on AMC+. But we’d be hard-pressed to say AMC+ is on the front lines of the streaming war. At least with the Premium HBO Max tier, viewers can watch the series in a manner that Don Draper would hate: Free of commercials.
For those who missed the show on its initial run, Mad Men follows Don Draper, a Madison Avenue advertising executive, who observes, consumes, and reflects the changing moods of the country in the 1960s. But while the mystery of Don’s past serves as the crux of the show, the surrounding characters are just as fascinating, with star-making performances from Vincent Kartheiser, Elisabeth Moss, January Jones, Christina Hendricks, Rich Sommer, Aaron Staton, Kiernan Shipka, Jessica Paré, and John Slattery. Look, we don’t have to sell Mad Men. It’s tremendously funny and engaging, on top of being one of the most stylish and inventive shows of the era.
Mad Men starts streaming on December 1.
