“Mad Men” premiered on July 19, 2007 and is one of those shows that you either love or bored to death by. It’s not an action show or a comedy. It’s a slow moving drama. A period piece. Basically a soap opera. But not the kind of soap opera that spawns evil twins or visits that amnesia well. It’s based in reality and portrays real people with real problems. And since it’s based in the 60’s, it presents us with a bit of a history lesson on what those times looked liked and the struggles people had to endure when things were a bit more repressed (and smoked a whole lot more).
The main focus of the show is on the character of advertising executive (and womanizer) Donald Draper (Jon Hamm). And what’s most interesting about Don Draper is that he isn’t the real Don Draper, but a guy by the name of Dick Whitman who stole Don Draper’s identity during the Korean War so that he could be discharged sooner, with the added incentive of escaping his own identity and reinventing himself (yes, I know that was a very long run-on sentence). Dick had nothing growing up. His mother was a prostitute who died during childbirth and he was raised in a whore house. That can tend to follow you around a bit in life. But now, even though he has a new identity, being someone he’s not has really weighed on him over the years. And it shows.
The characters in the show are so well written that even if you took Don out of the equation, the show could live on and would probably be just as fascinating. So instead of telling you about all of the characters and how great this show actually is (since you probably already know), I’ll let you read it for yourself.
In celebration of the return of “Mad Men” for its last seven episodes tonight, I’m posting the script for the very first Writer’s Draft, dated April 5, 2001 (six years before the show premiered), written by Matthew Weiner. I haven’t yet compared it to the actual finished episode, but I’m sure there are probably many differences since it is indeed the first draft.
Click on the Pic below to access.
