I stopped watching AMC (American Movie Classics) about five years ago after they decided to destroy their channel with advertising. Up until that time, they were a wonderful broadcaster of old films, uninterrupted. Advertising turned me away.

Now advertising, the fictional world of it in 1960, has brought me back to AMC. “Mad Men” created by (“The Sopranos”) Matthew Weiner, is an artful, crisply written, well acted adult drama about Madison Avenue 47 years ago. People smoke, drink martinis, have affairs, and do it under the guise of civility and discretion. Unlike today, when 45-year-olds try to look and act 19, the young men of “Mad Men” graduate from college and enter a world of responsibility and act like bad minded adults in gray flannel and rep ties.

Mr. Weiner has cast this show remarkably well. Jon Hamm is a square jawed matinee idol who carries himself with self-assurance and dashingly sardonic dialogue. Vincent Kartheiser as Pete Campbell, a trust fund WASP, is normality with a twist of strangeness, like something out of the “The Twilight Zone”. Cinematography, art direction, costumes….are as well done as 2002’s ode to Douglas Sirk, the film “Far From Heaven”. The cast and crew must be working until 4am everyday to pull off this show.

One thing that serves “Mad Men” remarkably well are the rules of society in 1960. The suspense and mystery of what might happen is constrained by the propriety and manners of that time. People don’t lose complete control or go haywire. These are quiet lives of frustration: mental anxiety, Kent Cigarettes and Brylcreemed heads.

“Mad Men” is the first real adult scripted show since “The Sopranos”.