One of TV's Most Acclaimed Series Is Dominating HBO Max 10 Years After Its End
More than a decade after it ended, one of TV’s most acclaimed shows is having a major resurgence on streaming charts.
Mad Men Is Surging on HBO Max
Mad Men, AMC’s awards-laden hit about the ad men (and women) at New York City’s Sterling Cooper Ad Agency, debuted Dec. 1 on HBO Max and has been generating hearty viewership in the less than two weeks since. Currently, the smash TV show is second on the streamer’s list of top 10 trending series behind IT: Welcome to Derry. Mad Men is the outlier in the group, as, alongside Welcome to Derry, the rest of the top six—Heated Rivalry; I Love L.A.; The Other Way; and Holiday Baking Championship—are ongoing series releasing new episodes.
Royce Battleman, EVP for Global Content Acquisitions at Warner Bros. Discovery, called Mad Men "a great addition to the HBO Max library of iconic content. We are thrilled that HBO Max will provide fans the opportunity to enjoy the series in a fresh way with an enhanced 4K viewing experience.”
There was one big hiccup, however, as the series—remastered in 4K—was initially uploaded to the platform with multiple editing errors that left crew members in shots and digital changes undone. This appears to have been corrected as of publication.
Mad Men Pioneered TV's 'Golden Age'
Along with AMC’s Breaking Bad, Mad Men pioneered the so-called “Golden Era of Television" and jump-started the ongoing pursuit for the next great series long before streaming dominated the cultural landscape. “It’s worth remembering that when Mad Men started, a period drama set in an ad agency was few people’s idea of compelling material,” wrote James Poniewozik for The New York Times in an article titled “What Streaming TV Could Learn from Mad Men.”
“Mad Men was made according to no one’s formula. And it proved that the ordinary stuff of life—work, marriage, getting older—could get an audience to care, if you got them to believe that the characters cared,” Poniewozik continued, noting that Mad Men “may not have been the most-watched series of its contemporaries, but it has had a more culturally resonant afterlife than most.” “Streamers should keep this in mind before they decide their future lies in pushing a panel of buttons that was manufactured in the 20th century.”
AMC Networks
Considered a Successor to The Sopranos
Mad Men’s placement on HBO Max’s top 10 is particularly appropriate considering that the series was often hailed as a successor to The Sopranos. The series charts the exploits of Don Draper (Jon Hamm), a hard-drinking-and-smoking Sterling Cooper marketing exec in 1960s New York, who “struggles to stay on top of the heap in the high-pressure world of Madison Avenue advertising firms,” according to the show’s official logline. “Aside from being one of the top ad men in the business, Don is also a family man, the father of young children.”
In addition to Hamm, the series stars Elisabeth Moss as Peggy Olson; Christina Hendricks as Joan Holloway; John Slattery as Roger Sterling; Vincent Kartheiser as Pete Campbell; January Jones as Betty Draper; and Kiernan Shipka as Sally Draper. Rich Sommer, Aaron Staton, Michael Gladis, Bryan Batt, Maggie Siff, Alison Brie, and Jared Harris appear in supporting roles.