Appearance is all in the universe of Mad Men, Matthew Wiener’s wry, deceptively breezy history of Madison Avenue advertising executives in the early 1960s. It’s central theme is the tension between the glossy, well-kept surface of corporate America and the countless petty cruelties and ugly prejudices that fuel its engines and those of the society it serves.  Take central character Don Draper, masterfully portrayed by Jon Hamm. On the surface he’s perfection in a two-button suit, Sean Connery’s Bond with the addition of a sharp business mind, and a witty, poetic imagination. But beneath the slick, Brylcreem and Lucky Strike exterior he’s an emotional cripple, an incorrigible serial adulterer whose entire three-kids-and-a-trophy-wife existence is built on an increasingly shaky foundation of massive, unforgivable lies. The show’s title sequence is a stylised rendering of Don’s life: a faceless man in a suit, falling headlong into the unknown, even as the world he is building looms ever higher above him: a world of white teeth and long legs, beauty, health and optimism.

The 3-disc DVD set of Season 3 is packaged in another metaphorical rendering of Don’s predicament and that of all those other button-down working stiffs who can’t see the changes that are coming: Draper sitting impassively smoking a cigarette while his office fills with water. We pick up on Draper and his colleagues at Sterling-Cooper roughly a year after the company’s takeover by British firm PPL, (meaning among other things the welcome addition of the excellent Jared Harris as posh, but authoritative English office manager Lane Pryce), and the agency’s previous cocksure confidence is suddenly undercut with uncertainty. Meanwhile Draper’s home life is about to be rocked by several earth-shattering incidents, including birth, death, infidelity and his wife Betty’s (January Jones) growing suspicions about the secrets he keeps from her. Draper’s protégé Peggy Olson (Elizabeth Moss) continues to grow in maturity and intellect faster than the world around her will allow, and office weasel Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) continues to let bitterness and selfishness dominate his life. The most compelling thing about Mad Men and its’ characters is that there are no real good guys or bad guys. Our sympathies toward anyone at any given moment can turn on a sixpence, often within a scene, sometimes within a sentence.

For despite the show’s lovingly detailed recreation of New York in 1963, this is no museum piece or history lesson. These people are vibrantly alive, in their own moment, and their behaviours and attitudes reflect that. Mad Men has always incorporated the big historical turning points of the era in believable, matter-of-fact ways: here the legendary speeches of Martin Luther King are often just background noise to a conversation, and the coming cultural storms of the sixties are hinted at rather than outlined, usually by a thoughtlessly racist, sexist or homophobic remark or gesture. Roger Sterling (John Slattery) serenading his young bride in shoe-polish blackface is one of the most jaw-dropping and horrifically funny things you’ll see this year, while the series’ penultimate episode orchestrates a flurry of dramatic turning points to the awful, near-mythical tragedy of the JFK assassination. As well as this, the series acquaints Don with an influential father figure from real life, in the form of one Conrad Hilton: as played by veteran character actor Chelsea Ross he overwhelms Don with a eccentric combination of avuncular charm, steely dominance and emotional neediness which leaves our anti-hero reeling.

Mad Men's Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks): They just don't make sex symbols like they used to…

It is, however, a small miracle of sorts that a series which dissects its characters’ lives and social milieu so brutally and mercilessly can be as straightforwardly FUN as Mad Men, but every single aspect of the series is a joy and a pleasure. It’s pure eye candy, the sets, the suits, the dresses, the way everyone holds themselves aloft a little straighter than we’re used to. Resident red-haired bombshell Joan Harris nee Holloway (Christina Hendricks, easily the main reason about half of the show’s fans watch it) departs the employment of Sterling-Cooper in a blizzard of sponge cake and unexpected gore in the series’ most bizarrely hilarious episode, and the series finale is a unique blend of grown-up trauma and giddy excitement as events take a turn for the decidedly uncharted. Things will be radically different next season, for everyone, and the final episode leaves you desperate for Season 4 to begin.

The DVD itself is beautifully put together as befits a drama of such quality: even the animated menus are of a piece with the overall tone. The extras are plentiful with no less than four documentaries :an engrossing biography of tragic civil rights campaigner Medgar Evers: a touching photo-montage set to Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have A Dream’ speech in Washington: an amusing interview with Mad Men sketch artist Dyna Moe and a sometimes-witty, sometimes-shocking look at the dubious history of cigarette ads in America. Add to this a handful of warm, funny and intelligent commentaries by various members of the cast and Matthew Weiner himself, and you have quite the flawless item.

[rating:5/5]