Try visiting a tv blog or any kind of pop culture blog lately without finding someone talking about how great AMC’s Mad Men is. What I can’t figure out is why think it’s so great. I think it’s like one of those things people think they’re supposed to find great, so they say they do, but they don’t (like Dickens novels, and sushi).

Here’s the long and short of it: Matthew Weiner, the creator and director, is a former Sopranos writer. And it shows. Mad Men is Sopranos-level pretentious, artistic masturbation without the action, excitement, and drama inherent in a mafia drama. So it’s all the boring of a session between Tony and Melfi, but set in an office place, where no one ever gets shot or talks to the Feds.

To be fair the last three episodes have been better than anything in season two (season one is the only one I’d actually recommend my friends subject themselves to). There’s been a lot less looking thoughtfully into the distance and a lot more witty, engaging dialogue, and freak lawn mower accidents (for real, see clip below), I was also relieved to see the return of my favorite character, Joan “va va voom” Holloway, who resigned from the ad agency a couple episodes ago, at least for a brief moment.

But when Joan, wit, or bloody accidents are missing from a scene, which is often the case, the only way to cope with a full hour of Mad Men is drinking through the pain of life along with these over-indulgent characters. Here’s the game my fellow viewers and I have dreamt up. Remember, the burn of alcohol in your throat might make the pretentious, nostalgia-drama go down the hatch just a little more smoothly.

1 drink when you see someone smoking

1 drink when you see someone drinking

1 drink when Pete says something douchey

1 drink when Peggy is out of the loop

2 drinks for coping with what we call a “Sally Alert,” or the appearance of Don and Betty Draper’s incredibly obnoxious, uninteresting ten-year old daughter.

Finish your drink every time there is a Mad-Men Moment — This is hard to explain, except by saying that you’ll know one when you see one. They’re the long lingering shots on Don fingering a blade of grass, while squinting at the sun, or they’re dream sequences that mean absolutely nothing except to the ravenous online community who will spend 9,000 words dissecting it the next day. You’ll know you’ve witnessed a Mad-Men Moment when you feel the immediate urge to put yourself out of your misery or throw something through your television set. Trust me, you’ll need a lot to get through these moments.

*Warning* Watch Mad Men with beer, not liquor. We aren’t conditioned to drink like they could back then, even though we’d like to believe we’re just as cool as Don. Playing this game with liquor could lead to a hospital visit.