Mad Men is slow because it's filmed in the style of the period. As television, it's the opposite to what we're mostly seeing, and in that way it's very original and daring. It unwinds like a good book. It seems to be very well observed, according to people who lived through similar.
For me,
Mad Men is about identity. Is a man who he says he is? You watched 6 eps, so you already see that the main character is - in some senses - an example of advertising, himself. Someone later says: "The Japanese have a saying: a man is whatever room he is in, and right now Donald Draper is in this room." That's it, in essence. And that's a goal of advertising, and advertising is the creative engine that drives capitalism, so it's quite a subtle show, not banging the themes too loudly.
Don is no Dexter or Walter White: his darkness isn't murderous, or violent. But being a character-driven show, I think it goes way deep.
Sopranos without the bloodshed, is how it's often described, but I find it more interesting and consistent in quality than the Sopranos. Don is highly attractive and he's a compelling
archetype. We watch the fifties, basically, give way to the sixties, and Don is a fifties man. He's no boho. In a sense, because of his past, he's actually Old American, where a guy rides into town and tells everybody who he is - and they accept it.
But the world around Don is getting modern, electronic, and changing. I must say, I got a great laugh out of how they talk to the secretaries, more or less handing them their hats and telling them to make coffee. And that's when they're bring nice to them. :laydownlaughing
