CABLE: MAD MEN (SEASON 2)

FX (StarHub Ch 87)

Wednesdays, 11pm

AT FIRST glance, Mad Men happens in a world that many cannot immediately relate to.

Set in the advertising world of 1960s New York, it follows the wheelers and dealers of fictional small advertising agency Sterling Cooper on Madison Avenue.

But to only say that wouldn't be giving the Emmy and Golden Globe-winning series its due.

Let us say instead that Mad Men is a psychological tour de force of office and emotional politics.

The dreamily paced series is hooked on Donald Draper (John Hamm), bigshot ad man, who has secrets to hide.

Last season, we found out that he is the son of a prostitute, and that he has stolen his identity from a dead soldier.

He is a man who doesn't name his problems but who instead lives them, leaving the viewer to spy them out and eventually see the monster for what it is.

We haven't yet caught the whole beast, the thing that has him chasing affairs and keeping himself emotionally distant from his wife, his kids, the truth of his own life.

But we have caught glimpses in the existential angst that Draper constantly experiences.

Tomorrow night, you'll see Draper's young, ambitious rival Peter Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) turn to him for comfort when he learns his father has gone down in a plane crash.

"I don't know what to do," says Campbell.

"Go home and be with your family," Draper tells him.

"Why?"

"Because that's what people do," says Draper, emptiness in his eyes.

In that moment, you question yourself, your own values.

You ask yourself, as Campbell asks Draper: "Is that what you would do?"

The series deals with women's lib as well, through its secretaries, wives and paramours.

Most striking is Betty Draper (painfully wrought by the gorgeous January Jones), Draper's constantly betrayed wife.

She must keep the pretence of being all right, smile her red-lipped smile. You wonder when she'll unravel.

And, of course, there's Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss), the upstart female copywriter who must negotiate gender politics as she struggles to break into the boys' club at work (remember, these are the 1960s).

Tune in, or miss out.

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