You've reduced the show to the point of caricature and it's an inaccurate one at that. Predictable? The mousy, timid secretary who gets pregnant from a one time fling, has the baby and banishes the child to be raised by her sister for the sake of her career? The ad man with the apparently perfect wife, children and career built on lies and stolen identity? The wife who realizes she doesn't know anything about the man who she married and hardly knows herself any better?
As I said, you don't have to like the show. It has a style of storytelling and character development that is methodical and deliberate. It doesn't shy from long pauses and long camera takes. It's understandable if some don't have the patience for it. But please spare us the hoary criticism that "nothing happens." In fact, plenty happens. It just happens in a manner that you don't like.
And since you seem to be so keen on Gareth McLean, do you actually think this is a coherent criticism: "a wasted opportunity to skewer the hollowness of the American dream"? Setting aside the question of whether that statement is even accurate, one has to wonder when TV reviewers started to rubbish entertainment shows for their alleged failure to adequately skewer the American Dream. Battlestar Galactica? Insufficient skewering of the War on Terror and anti-Muslim bias! Damages? Where's the criticism of Guantanamo Bay?! Gossip Girl? The very characters are offensive to the working class!
Gareth McLean should review shows for what they are, not how he wants them to be. His review of Mad Men is rubbish.