I spent the whole week looking forward to the last ever episode of Mad Men. But in truth, I’ve spent the whole year dreading it. When AMC announced that the current series (I’ll refrain from saying ‘season’) would be the very last, I knew in my heart that this all too sad day would come. And so we bid a tearful fairway to one of the greatest shows of all time and the characters within that we’ve grown to love.

Mad Men, for me was very much a slow-burner. Some shows like The Wire or The West Wing grab you right from the start. Mad Men wasn’t like that at all. A television show about the Madison Avenue (hence the name) advertising executives in the 1960s certainly doesn’t fire the viewer up with enthusiasm. Initially, I watched the first couple of episodes and then gave up. But a friend convinced me it was worth revisiting and he was right. Half way through the second series I was completely in its grip, and have been totally captive ever since.

The show would win countless awards and garner almost complete critical praise.

What made it SO good? Was it the writing? Set predominantly in New York, the bustling centre of the cosmos, Mad Men has been filled with fascinating story arcs from the very first episode. Series creator Matthew Weiner cut his teeth on Sopranos no less, so it was always going to be tightly written. But this will be his magnum opus.

The show takes its time in developing characters, and there’s a character in Mad Men for everyone. Be it Peggy Olsen – my wife’s favourite (after Don) - ambitious but in a likeable way. Peggy almost inevitably found herself pregnant at the hands of a waspish, grasping account man called Pete Campbell (another great character) within days. Peggy would go on to fight her way to the top despite all the odds. Don Draper was her mentor and idol. (He was mine too.) Between them they have shared a couple of magical, tear-filled scenes – my tears not theirs.
The central character, of course, is creative director Don Draper. Draper, brilliant at his job with a deep insight into the mind of the American consumer, but plagued by a shady past and a troubled family life. Born Dick Whitman, our (anti) hero swapped dog tags with his dead commanding officer as a means to escape the Korean War. He stole somebody else’s identity and began a new life.
We’re as addicted to Don Draper’s peccadilloes and mis-steps as the ladies are attracted to his screen idol good looks. And by God the man loved a drink. And a smoke. And a ride.

Don’s (first) wife Betty Draper was always the pantomime villain for me– beautiful, slightly mental and a pain in the arse. My own favourite character was Roger Sterling, the king of the one-liners and a man who really doesn’t give a f*#k. Mrs Doherty says that any time Roger is on screen she looks over at me and I’m giggling like a school girl.
And not forgetting red-headed Joan with her infeasible large bosom– both no nonsense office manager and fragile butterfly at the same time. O momma!

And there are so many other players in this great American novel of a show – wee Sally Draper, Megan ‘Zou Bisou Bisou’ Draper, Bert Cooper, Harry Crane, Stan, Ted, Megan’s ma, Lane and many, many more.
Perhaps it’s how lush the show is, dressed in all the furnishings of the era, with period details filling every shot. Maybe it’s the history of 1960s America with the Vietnam War, Martin Luther King and the Kennedys and other historical events inter-twining their way into the story. We nostalgically glance back at a different time - sometimes better, sometimes not.

It’s all of these ingredients and more that make Mad Men magnificent. What I really love is you genuinely never know where a single episode is going to take you. The viewer is continually wrong-footed, in the best possible way. It’s a smart show. Smarter than me, anyway.
Suicide, alcoholism, adultery, prostitution, divorce, you name it— granted, it’s not exactly a laugh riot week in and week out. But, peppered in with all the compelling drama, there are the occasional lighthearted scenes, snappy one-liners, put downs and visual gags.

Many TV shows, especially from the U.S., tend to over stay their welcome and completely suck the teet dry. Others, such as Deadwood, finish too soon and leave you dry mouthed for more. But Mad Men has bowed out just at the right time. I’ll not spoil the ending, but once again it was something unexpected and truly fitting of such a great operatic television programme. (If a little sentimental. Just a little.) We’ve come to the end of the road for these brilliant, complex, three-dimensional characters who, over the past eight years, we have come to know so well, become friends with even. And hell I’m going to miss them.
In a halcyon era of the small screen, Mad Men is just about as good as television gets these days. I can pay it no higher praise than that. It’s gone now. Like many of Don Draper’s female conquests I’ve been left broken-hearted, naked and alone. Sure I wouldn't want it any other way.

But, maybe its time to watch it all over again.

MY FAVOURITE MAD MEN QUOTES:

"You don't know how to drink. Your whole generation, you drink for the wrong reasons. My generation, we drink because it's good, because it feels better than unbuttoning your collar, because we deserve it. We drink because it's what men do." - Roger Sterling

"Let's take it a little slower. I don't want to wake up pregnant." - Don Draper

"When God closes a door, he opens a dress." - Roger Sterling

Peggy: "I have a boyfriend." Joyce: "He doesn’t own your vagina." Peggy: "No, but he’s renting it."

Roger Sterling: "They say once you start drinking alone, you're an alcoholic. I'm really trying to avoid that" Don Draper: "So I guess I'm helping both of us"

"My name is Peggy Olson and I wanna smoke some marijuana" - Peggy Olson

"My father married his secretary. She's my age." - Sally Draper

“I was just giving her a hard time... can I give you one too?” - Roger Sterling

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