Mad Men riffs off of compelling 1960s themes. The vices: smoking, drink(ing and driving), homophobia, sexism. The history: the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Nixon v. Kennedy election, period product placements like Clearasil and Coke. The morality: gendered expectations about contributions to family and work life, the effect of the wars when they affected a broader swathe of society, the role of honesty and desire in a culture of repressive sexual mores. The camerawork, sets, costumes, and acting are captivating and seamless. The $2.5 million they’re spending on each episode is evident.

Thematically, the show is at times quite forthright, downright unsubtle. The historical inaccessibility and taboo of abortion. The sexist way that wives are used as pawns to get to their husbands. The powerlessness of women in the face of rape by their partners. Sometimes the show is more subtle. The way that it gradually dribbles out the details of Don’s past life. The way that sex and work serve as distractions from mundane and unhappy lives. An incessant yearning for the new that never produces happiness.

The issue is that this series is familiar not just because it’s a period and place that we all recognize from our social science classes, it’s familiar because these are overworked themes which rehash the debates of a generation past and don’t engage with the central problems of our time. When television is set in another time and place, that can provide the cover to make wry and provocative comments about contemporary society (viz. Star Trek) or it can just be a form of escapism which dodges, not confronts, contemporary social issues. It’s a well made series, no doubt. If only it were relevant. Or perhaps it’s just that the series is a product of an incredibly insular country: one which has never escaped from lionizing Camelot or from rehashing that era’s moral and social debates.