I recently distracted myself on several evenings watching the entire first season of Mad Men on Comcast On Demand. Sexy, savvy and sad in equal measures, it was clear to see why it won the Golden Globe for Best Dramatic Series and Best Actor.

Maya's right, and so is most everyone else regarding this nifty series---which I am about to finish by viewing disc #4 of the first season. Initially, I thought, "Oh--this is OK TV, particularly its setting: the late 50s on America's east coast. But slowly, with each new episode things deepen, get funnier, sadder, weirder and ever MORE believable. The series does great things with the 50s but the "era" is not the subject nor the main attraction. Ideas are (What a shock!). And mores. And how everything--the characters, their work, puny predjudices, recreation, families: life!--is so full of good and bad, just and unjust, that as soon as you start rooting for anyone, that person is bound to disappoint you -- and thus make you think more sharply than if s/he had done the right or expected thing. Every subject brought up on the show is in some way pertinent to how we live now, fifty years later. For me MAD MEN is turning out to be so much better than The Sopranos (mainly because the characters are working their good and/or ill within society rather than outside of it, and as much as America loves to glamorize the Mafia, it is a shit organization that deserves no respect and --at this point, after so, so many attempts to wring drama, truth and whatever else out of it -- damn little screen time. I think MAD MEN also goes one better even than Six Feet Under, at least for now. We'll see if all this good stuff continues. I'm crossing my fingers.