This modern masterpiece from the Golden Age of television remains a timeless classic nearly two decades after it was released. Now streaming on HBO Max, this outstanding, Emmy-winning series with 7 seasons and 92 episodes is universally a must-watch.
Featuring a star-studded, marvelous ensemble cast, led by Jon Hamm, Elisabeth Moss, John Slattery, and January Jones, this series possesses a rare ability to captivate viewers through non-violent tension and brilliant character development and has aged tremendously.
Mad Men Brought Prestige TV To Cable After HBO Rejected It
Mad Men holds up nearly twenty years after its premiere as one of the best TV series ever made, even though it is built unlike most successful streaming shows nowadays. Even the best TV shows of all time, like The Sopranos and Breaking Bad, relied on violent scenes and characters to achieve greatness. Mad Men, however, did it all through sheer immersion of its vintage story world – 1960s Manhattan.
Mad Men looked and felt like it belonged on a premium network, such as HBO or Showtime, which was the home of mature, prestigious television for years before the streaming age arrived. However, even before Netflix took over with its binge-watching model, Mad Men broke new ground for cable TV on the AMC Network, paving the way for shows like Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead to exist.
The irony of it all is that Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner originally pitched the series to HBO while he was working as a writer on The Sopranos during its final two seasons. After HBO turned him down, Weiner shopped it around Hollywood, where AMC was willing to give it a shot. Mad Men went on to premiere in July 2007, about a month after The Sopranos finale, and changed television forever.
Epic TV Dramas Like Mad Men May Never Be Made Again
Take a look at any top-rated streaming series in January 2026 and see if there’s a pattern. On Netflix, we had murder mystery thrillers like His & Hers and massive franchise titles like Stranger Things. On HBO, The Pitt season 2, a medical drama, returned, along with a new Game of Thrones spinoff and the continued momentum of the breakout romance series Heated Rivalry.
Whether it’s a thriller, fantasy, or romance series, most streaming series nowadays are deeply rooted within a genre and often rely on violence or the threat of violence to achieve dramatic tension. Mad Men, on the other hand, hardly ever had instances of violence, and when it did, it packed an enormous punch. Apart from that, there were rarely any guns, explosions, crime, murder, or horror elements.
Some remarkable series that are entrenched in the relationships between characters have emerged after Mad Men, most notably, Succession. That said, the depth and sophistication of Mad Men’s character arcs, for a show that relies almost entirely on character, is a feat that arguably hasn’t been achieved on the same level since the series concluded in 2015.