In the midst of all these TV shows starring ex-TV show stars in even older storylines, Mad Men is a refreshing watch. But I still have some problems with it. The first time I watched the show, I knew something was wrong, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

I still can’t, by the way, but I might be closer.

Mad Men reminds me of period films made in Hollywood, the ones you want to accuse of baiting the Oscars, which is what most of them do anyway. The show is so much about the fashion and makeup and décor — and they are beautiful — but it makes me worry that that’s all the show is about.

But then, it isn’t. There’s a strong story line, strong characters, and lots of wtf is going to happen now.

I wonder how other women watch Mad Men, but to me it often seems like an exposé on Gender and Womanhood in Upper Class America in the 1960s or some such thing. You have the dutiful housewives, the rampant sexism of the workplace, the secretaries, the neighbourhood’s only divorcée cast as possible vamp. It’s all a bit caricature-y.

Anyway, I won’t presume to know things were exactly back in the 1960s, but I find the show to be constructed entirely in retrospect. It makes me more conscious of myself as belonging to the twenty-first century than any other period film/show I’ve watched in the recent past. I mean, when was the last time you saw a pregnant woman smoking and drinking? It’s disconcerting.

What do you think?

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I’m only on Episode 5 of Season 1, so you better not reveal anything. This is not a movie.

Also, and this is super important, there seems a sudden interest in manly men. A and I were falling over Samuel Le Bihan, a not very well known French actor, after we saw him in an Eric Rochant film. And now I’m in love with a man named Hamm.

It’s interesting how neither of them look great outside of the Rochant film and Mad Men respectively. I can’t find an image of Bihan that remotely matches how good he looks in the movie (my reaction was: ‘Where the hell did they get a macho-looking Frenchman?’) and the only ones of Jon Hamm I like are from Mad Men.

Eye candy