As it sits, ""Mad Men"" has two episodes left in its fourth season. But until recently, this season has had little in terms of plot and a lot of establishing the new setting of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce and its characters' new roles within it. But the action has been very contained, with plotlines involving Don Draper's true identity and a budding relationship with an SCDP consultant, Joan and Roger's briefly rekindled and rapidly unkindled romance and the very survival of the new firm only rolling into view recently.
This begs the question: why do Mad Men viewers not only tolerate this, but seemingly love it?
I would fit right into the camp, as so far season four is my favorite yet for AMC's critically acclaimed keystone show. However, this isn't a particularly new development for ""Mad Men."" Other than season one, each year the show has gone through multi-episode stretches dedicated almost exclusively to character building while little develops in the plot.
Without a doubt, ""Mad Men"" has to be the most meditative show on TV (with perhaps the exception of AMC's recent labyrinthine debut, ""Rubicon""). Yet it's still a hit. Granted, it's a hit mostly by basic cable standards—the show's latest season premiere attracted 2.9 million viewers, which is less than a quarter the draw of your average episode of ""Two and a Half Men,"" a statistic that makes me cry myself to sleep on a nightly basis. But it's still a sizable draw for a series that moves along at a slower pace than your average calculus lecture.
It's probably not appropriate to compare ""Mad Men"" to a network drama where any audience would be wailing in the writers' ears about the lack of forward motion. But ""Mad Men"" has the advantage of appealing to a college educated, upper middle class audience with plenty of cash on hand, a very appealing market for advertisers. So appealing, in fact, that companies have developed ads specifically for ""Mad Men"" designed to trick those watching on DVR by copying the show's lighting and set design. Then again, this may just be real life Madison Avenue creative types simply lauding a show that shines the spotlight on their chosen profession, but that's a slightly ridiculous notion.
So the audience for ""Mad Men"" is naturally more understanding of slow-building plotlines, but even the most understanding viewership has a breaking point. ""Lost"" had a fairly affluent audience for a network show, but fans still cried that it was spinning its wheels at various points. ""The Sopranos"" was also called out late in its run for failing to advance the stories people most wanted to see. And ""Mad Men"" doesn't have the pulse-pounding action to make up for such gaps in plot development.
What does separate ""Mad Men"" from these other shows is the sheer complexity of its ensemble. While Tony Soprano was arguably the most complex character ever seen on television, the rest of ""The Sopranos"" characters didn't have the same depth as he did. The same can't be said with ""Mad Men,"" where protégé Peggy Olson, up-and-comer Pete Campbell or office vixen Joan Harris (nee Holloway) are just as complicated as the fabulous Mr. Draper. The numerous episodes of character exploration are necessary to wrap your head around everybody's conflicting motivations; the story just doesn't make sense without it. And thankfully, any ""Mad Men"" character building episode is much more riveting than a typical murder investigation on ""CSI.""
In fact, this season in particular seemed to have an awkward shift once the plot kicked in with the episode ""Hands and Knees."" But if the end of last season is any indication, the one thing ""Mad Men"" can do just as well as character development is finales. And after all the build up in season four, chances are ""Mad Men"" viewers are in for one hell of a finale in two weeks.
