Maybe I did something to give too much away the last time a new season started. Or I wrote something Matthew Weiner didn’t like. Most likely of all, a mere TV blogger is not as lofty a title as newspaper TV critic and I was simply crossed off the list.
So for whatever reason, I was left off the list to receive a coveted advance screener of tonight’s season six premiere of “Mad Men” (AMC, 9 p.m.), which I understand came with a long detailed list of all the things that should not be revealed in a preview story, down to what year it is. (I think you can say, though, that the show is on AMC at 9 p.m. But that’s about it).
Much of the fun of the show is not knowing what’s going to happen. Having written those restricted advance stories in the past, I know what a drag that imposition can be. So I don’t feel completely left out about not getting it early — except of course that I wanted to see it as soon as possible as, a fan.
That kind of thing doesn’t always work. I watched four new episodes of this season’s “Game of Thrones” when they came in the mail and now I know I don’t have to tune in Sunday nights on HBO for another month to reconnect (wouldn’t I have been more connected had I just watched from week to week?). (In the case of “Thrones,” though, re-watching it every week as it airs may aid in my unraveling of the various plots and in distinguishing between all the men in long hair and beards who populate the cast).
The one thing we know about the season of “Mad Men” (and not getting the screener allows me to be unshackled and wildly speculative) is that Weiner wasn’t happy about doing a two-hour premiere (the network insisted, he said in one interview).
From the advance promotional shots, we know Don Draper and most of the main characters are back. Betty Draper, having shed her fat suit, will have a larger role this season. Don is still married to Meagan I think (though nobody was sure if a real marriage would follow the fling that ended season four; it ended up being a major theme in season five). Don may or may not have taken up the random girl’s flirtation that ended the fifth season: “Are you alone?” That particular girl probably isn’t in there this season, but the questions bubbling in Don’s head certainly will be.
Pete may not be still with the suburban woman with whom he had an affair (and has since forgotten him after electroshock therapy). But the actress who played that woman, Alexis Bledel, is now engaged to be married to Vincent Kartheiser, the actor who plays Pete, in an off-screen development as surprising as anything in the series.
The mid 60s are making way for the more intense latter part of the decade, Sally is getting older, and maybe Roger Sterling has found a steady supplier of the LSD he likes so much. Peggy’s working at another firm, but it’s impossible to think of her as being a part of the action, as the show was arguably conceived through her eyes when it began.
So splendidly written, so vividly conceived and yet so enigmatic, “Mad Men” almost always lives up to the hype as a cultural touchstone and certainly one of the best things on TV now. And I’m sure the new season will keep up those standards. Even if I’m no longer in the club that got advance peeks.