Rectify is the successor to Mad Men you've been looking for

As its second season begins, the SundanceTV drama distinguishes itself as one of TV's smartest, most complex dramas

Rectify
(Image credit: (Blake Tyers/SundanceTV))

A few weeks ago, AMC premiered Halt and Catch Fire, a dead-in-the-water drama about the personal computing boom of the early 1980s. The show follows Joe MacMillan, a brilliant, charismatic innovator with a murky, traumatic past. I'd hardly be the first critic to point out that Joe bears a conspicuous resemblance to Don Draper, the brilliant, charismatic innovator with a murky, traumatic past who lies at the center of Mad Men. (This is not a new trick for AMC; last year, the network attempted a similar feat with Low Winter Sun, a drama about a bald antihero's descent into corruption that was heavily promoted during Breaking Bad.)

AMC hasn't gone so far as to call Halt and Catch Fire "the next Mad Men," but it would be lying if it said it didn't want it to be. Mad Men has just seven episodes left before it goes off the air next year, which means that AMC is on the verge of losing the critically beloved drama on which it built its entire network — and the only replacement it currently has lined up is a poorly rated, critically maligned imitation of the real thing.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Scott Meslow

Scott Meslow is the entertainment editor for TheWeek.com. He has written about film and television at publications including The Atlantic, POLITICO Magazine, and Vulture.