‘Mad Men’: It’s about time

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Now I like a show set on a freaky desert island (that may or may not be a dream or possessed by spirits or whatever) as much as the next person, but I also enjoy a meaty work-place drama. But I’m burned out on the usual hospital, courtroom or, heaven forbid, some temperamental Brit’s kitchen. “Mad Men,” AMC’s new hourlong drama from Matthew Weiner (“The Sopranos”), is set at the fictional Sterling Cooper ad agency in 1960 and comes with all the stifling accoutrements -- nylons, neckties, meetings clouded in cigarette smoke -- but it’s pretty fresh in general and especially for a period piece.

Speaking of those, haven’t we been deprived long enough? I loved “Deadwood,” but HBO shot and stuffed that hoary beast a while ago. Before that, I remember being thoroughly rocked by “The Wonder Years,” but I was in junior high and a lot of things -- hamsters, grape soda -- rocked me then. And I’m still trying to forget the dull, oversimplified “American Dreams.”

“Mad Men,” on the other hand, is sharply complex, showing the fizzy light and the Brylcreemed dark in everyone and everything.

Let’s take the work place, for instance.

On one hand, the 1960 workday had some major perks. No one totes around Crackberries (“technology” is embodied in the fearsome rotary dial and a typewriter made simple enough “for a woman to use” -- more on that mess in a minute) and knocking off at 5:15 with cocktails is de rigueur. I can tell you from friends who work at ad powerhouse Chiat/Day that getting off at 5:15 in the morning is more likely.

But perhaps most conveniently, you can flub meetings by insulting the client and storming out or just sitting there in silent panic for a really long time. To be fair, our dapper hero Don Draper got his act together in the latter meeting. Trying to reenergize a dispirited tobacco client (Lucky Strikes ... who’s handling that dead-in-the-water account now?), Draper gets all glassy-eyed in his lofty monologue about the powers of advertising.

But where “Mad Men” really gets our girdles in knots is with its handling of the big work place/life issues concerning sexual harassment, ethnic diversity and other chapters of your 120-page handbook from HR, which, after seeing how much flak those steno pool secretaries get, seems more necessary than ever. The offensive remarks regarding (and often directed at) women and Jews, for starters, is obviously only the tip of the iceberg, and herein lies “Mad Men’s”’ very tough assignment. How to make these characters, with their sexism and racism, likeable? And will all those Bulova watches and Cherries in the Snow lipsticks make them seem like quaint remnants of a bygone era, or will we see them as real, struggling people?

If the last-minute developments with Don Draper are any indication, ‘Mad Men’ will take on these challenges with eloquent intelligence. Just when we’d all pegged Draper as a pseudo-cynical bachelor with a gift for selling nylons or cigarettes or hell, even Dick Nixon, he goes home to his safe little house in the suburbs where his wife dozes in full makeup and pink satin, murmuring that she left a plate for him in the oven.

Would Norman Rockwell approve of such a double life?

P.S. I think Salvatore, the Italian art director, is closeted. Was it just me, or did he drop a few hints?

-- Margaret Wappler