Selfishly hoping that the fan club stays small
The series should get acclaim, but not so much that it's ruined
When I say I want you to watch "Mad Men," AMC's nicotine-stained drama about unscrupulous ad men in the early 1960s, I truly mean it. The series returns for its second season on July 27, dabbed in Brylcreem and reeking of three-martini lunches, and before that date I sincerely urge you to play catch-up with season 1 on DVD. When you ask me how to find relief from the summer TV doldrums, my first answer will be "Mad Men," along with some zealous talk about how it's "Sweet Smell of Success" refracted through a post-"Sopranos" moral and psychological prism.
But keep your sweaty remote-control-clutching paws off my "Mad Men," people. And I truly mean that, too. I don't want to see one of my most cherished objects become dissipated at the water-cooler, made into a "phenomenon" that turns star Jon Hamm into a cover boy and inspires Slate magazine to run brainy weekly analyses. I want to share all good things with you, really I do, but really I don't. Once the universe - or at least planet Nielsen - fully embraces a TV show, that show officially loses its innocence, its diamond-in-the-roughness. It no longer has the allure of the underappreciated.
Like many of us, I'm of two minds about the culture I love. It's a curious place to be, when your emotions are split in half, when you feel generous and selfish at the same time, giving yet greedy. You want more people to come to the party and enjoy what you like - especially offbeat creations such as "Mad Men," HBO's "Flight of the Conchords," the twisted humor of Sarah Silverman, the vintage-soul sound of Amy Winehouse - but not too many people. In that cheerful room where we exhort friends to watch a cool TV series, or listen to a perfect CD, or read a novel that will change their lives, there is a back door through which we sometimes want to abscond with the goods, alone.
Part of this possessive streak is a protective instinct. These days, in particular, it's hard to wish more popularity on anything that wasn't as solidly built for mass consumption as a Batman movie or "American Idol." At the slightest hint of a hit, the networks lean too hard, the celebrity mags pounce, spoilers leak, sequels are devised, audience expectations rise, disappointment sets in. And most importantly, the creators can lose their way. Popularity spoiled ABC's "Grey's Anatomy," just as it ruined NBC's "Heroes," which got too many eyes too quickly. Much as I encourage viewers to watch CBS's ensemble sitcom "How I Met Your Mother," I know it would probably lose some snappy in-joking, get too stuffed with guest appearances like those of Britney Spears this spring, and gain too much sweeps-event melodrama if it became a "Friends"-size hit. Now, the show is small enough to stay good, big enough to stay on the air.
That was precisely where HBO's "The Wire" thrived creatively: with a loyal but always too-small viewership. "The Wire" spent its life in the Underdog Zone, consistently ignored by the Emmys. It stands as the most noble of all TV losers, the show whose loyalists could be gloriously aggrieved for five seasons. As honestly as I wanted masses of people to experience the sophisticated storytelling in "The Wire," I also wanted them to stay away and leave it be. I harbored a fear that it would become like the popular restaurant about which Yogi Berra supposedly said, "No one goes there anymore; it's too crowded."
Last summer, I had no problem pressing "Mad Men" onto willing listeners, and maybe a few unwilling listeners, too. Since then, though, the series - which drew only about a million viewers per episode in its first season - has clearly found a way into the mainstream dialogue.
"Mad Men" won two Golden Globes this winter - for best drama and for Hamm as best dramatic actor - which, mercifully, got less than massive attention since the ceremony was canceled due to the writers' strike. Now the series is a semifinalist in a number of Emmy categories, including best drama, and it's bound to be among the finalists announced on Thursday. A major AMC marketing effort, budgeted at $25 million, includes such promotional stunts as the recent makeover of New York City trains in early-'60s styles. The first season just came out on DVD, and "Mad Men" cast members are all over "Entertainment Weekly" and other media outlets.
And so I worry, and feel an oncoming case of endorsement remorse. If the show becomes a sensation - and summertime is the right time for a cable series to do that - will it be able to hold onto its subtlety? Will Don Draper's marriage maintain the tragically suppressed tones of the era, or will the writers have to spell out the couple's tensions? Will his self-loathing still emerge indirectly, and subtextually? Will the growing eminence of "Mad Men" - which has the breakthrough success of AMC resting on its gray-flannel shoulders - pressure creator Matthew Weiner to be more explicit, to speak to a broader viewership?
But of course protectiveness is only a part of wanting just a cult following for the likes of "Mad Men." After all, many shows - "Seinfeld," "The Sopranos" - have weathered mass popularity intact. Specialness, to be honest, is also in play. There's something appealingly intimate about having an eye or an ear on a lesser known delicacy. Your relationship with it seems almost one-on-one. You can somehow feel as though the show - or the song, or the book - is speaking directly to you, or just to people like you, and not to everyone else. You understand it, and you feel understood by it. You really want it all for yourself, but, fortunately, you want to set it loose and share it with others even more.
Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com. For more on TV, visit boston.com/ae/tv/blog/. 