I like it a lot, and not just because I have a crush on Christina Hendricks. This was my dad's world. Chain smoking, drinking in the office, sexism as a truth so deep that it wasn't even questioned by either sex. It's impressive that you can still like any of the characters despite their wealth of ignorant viewpoints.
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I'm not sure I do like any of the characters. The show is a bit like the Sopranos (calculated, stoic) but devoid of its humor -- or rather, there is humor, but rather than being character-based humor, we're meant to laugh at those wacky folks from 1960 and all their backwards ideas. So it's a detached kind of humor.
I loved the first episode, but liked the second episode quite a bit less. The writing has been brilliant, I think. But some people would argue that writing should not be judged only in terms of craft, but also against the question of -- how much does it make me care?
It's definitely a show that looks like it's going to do interesting things. I think the reason I disliked the second episode is that Campbell was gone. They established him in episode one so clearly as the villain, that without his presence in episode two, it felt like they let the air out of the story a little bit. My guess is, that character needs to be around to drive this thing forward.
The housewife's plight didn't really hit home for me until her husband surreptitiously called her doctor, and the doctor felt comfortably dishing his diagnosis, man-to-man. I mean, Draper seems like a relatively upstanding guy, but without doctor/patient privilege, these women are in a bad way. I can imagine domestic abuse was off the charts, and none of it was reported because women couldn't trust doctors. Between the WWII and Korean War Vets, coming home, hopped up on saving the world; the stigma surrounding divorce; the pay-scale differential between gender specific jobs; marrying the right guy was a gamble with real stakes.
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