John Slattery (L) and Christina Hendricks Photo: AFP

Get ready for your last dose of sex, booze, lies and advertising.

Mad Men, the award-winning hit series about morally compromised New York advertising executives in 1960s Manhattan, returns next month for its final seven episodes.

The influential show, which debuted on the AMC cable network in 2007, earned millions of fans around the globe thanks to stellar writing, powerful acting and a painstakingly detailed retro aesthetic.

Its depiction of 1960s cool has become such a part of US culture that props from the show were donated to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History on Friday.

In the final episodes viewers will learn the fate of the seductive and mysterious Don Draper (Jon Hamm), a gifted and charismatic ad man who has built his life on a lie.

Without giving away key plot points, Hamm said Draper "has attempted to build several houses on very broken foundations, and needs to address those foundations before he starts building a new house."

"Maybe he finds out in the next seven episodes his commitment to fixing what can be fixed," Hamm told a press conference in Los Angeles ahead of the April 5 premiere on US television.

When it was launched, Mad Men offered something new in an American television landscape dominated by crime procedurals and action/mystery programs like 24 or Lost.

The pilot episode written by series creator Matthew Weiner was actually rejected by HBO and Showtime before being taken up by AMC, which at the time was known more for re-running classic films.

While anti-heroes have become nearly the norm on critically acclaimed programs, nearly all of the main characters on Mad Men are riddled with faults.

"The show didn't shy away from the basic human condition," said Vincent Kartheiser, who plays Pete Campbell, a young ad man from a wealthy family battling for the respect of his peers.

AFP