"Mad Men," an ambitious new drama that debuts on cable net AMC Thursday at 10 p.m., is set in the fictional Sterling Cooper ad agency perched high above Madison Avenue in 1960.
In this world, women of all ages are girls, and know it. Liquor punctuates the workdays of the men in charge. Everybody smokes -- anytime, anywhere -- despite the warning that cigarettes can kill you.
Meanwhile, the Pill has just burst on the scene, and desperate housewives are trying psychotherapy.
The show's charm is that it doesn't treat 1960 as a quaint aberration. "Things don't
change, people don't change," insists Matthew Weiner, who created "Mad Men" (and was a writer for "The Sopranos"). "The rules change."
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