Breaking Backtime Season 1: Pillow Talk

It's the summer television hiatus. The Americans, Game Of Thrones, and Mad Men are done for the season. There is nothing to watch now except for the often frustrating New York Yankees. But there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Breaking Bad returns in 37 days and AMC is re-running every episode in order.

So it gives die-hard viewers a chance to re-live the situation from the beginning, and watch in amazement as the story and characters develop so drastically.

In the show's fifth-ever episode "Gray Matter," we realize why we love the show so much - it's the writing. There is a scene that is dramatic as (almost) any in the series, where an intervention is staged with five people in the White family living room.

There's no meth, no death, and the roles of Saul, Mike, and Gus haven't been introduced. It's one episode before Tuco and the unveiling of "Heisenberg." Walt even has hair. The scene is 11 minutes of talk only, and it starts with Skyler White clenching "the talking pillow."

The intervention is for Walt to undergo a debilitating and expensive chemotherapy treatment for his terminal lung cancer, which he is trying desperately to evade. Everyone takes their turn with the pillow and the words are raw and real. Skyler is indignant that Walt fight for his life for the sake of his family, and she gets into a shouting match with her sister, who insists that Walter has the right to make his own choice.

Walt sits quietly while those around him bicker, which is a metaphor for the whole process. Until he is forced to seize the pillow and speak for himself.

"These doctors, taking about surviving - one year, two years - like it's the only thing that matters. Well what good is it to just survive if I am too sick to work? To enjoy a meal? To make love? For what time I have left I want to live in my own house. I want to sleep in my own bed. I'm not going to choke down 30, 40 pills and lose my hair and lie around too tired to get up, so nauseated I can't even move my head..."

Walt made his stand and made his choice. I choose not to do it. At this point in Walt's mind he had left the meth business behind, having just pocketed a mere few thousand bucks with only a couple of bodies in his wake.

But the next morning he wakes up, hugs his wife and reconsiders. And if you know anything about Walt's character, even just 5 episodes in, he isn't going to take any handouts. He is going to make sure that he is responsible for his treatment and that his family is taken care of.

In the closing scene he appears back in Jesse Pinkman's driveway, "Wanna cook?" That's the moment that Walter White really breaks bad...for good.

"Gray Matter" originally aired February 24, 2008.

The Mad Men Variety Hour

After the gang from SCDP/CGC got a visit from Dr. Feelgood, all trippy hell broke loose for a full June 1968 weekend.

Ken Cosgrove's "It's My Job!" tap dance became an internet sensation, as it should have. I was watching somewhat live and rewound 3 times to believe the television moment I thought I had just witnessed.

Not only did a shot in the ass have Ken's foot feeling all better after his misadventures with the GM suits, but he managed to turn it into a satirical, stage-worthy routine with the cane as a prop. And you had to feel the undertones of a minstrel show with the black secretary Dawn looking on in bewilderment.

But all kinds of things were happening as the office in the Time-Life building turned into Vaudeville. As Rick James once posited on Chappelle's Show, "Cocaine is a helluva drug." I don't know what was in that shot, but it was a helluva drug. It gave Don Draper visions of his very troubled childhood, it made Stan Rizzo a pick-up artist, and it brought the whole gang to Michael Ginsberg's maturity level.

While the episode was entertaining and thought-provoking, as a medicinal journey might advertise (advertising!), it seems like a cheap trick in a tired series.

The Sopranos, from which Mad Men boss Matthew Weiner evolved, was guilty of these types of episodes multiple times. Tony Soprano had hallucinations while in the throes of food poisoning, he had "the test dream," and tripped on acid with a Las Vegas hooker.

Other shows have done it too, and it seems like a ploy from the writers to be outrageous. Drug-enhanced visions have to be added to the criteria for Jumping The Shark.

Don Draper's character has become a little tedious with the flashbacks, the introspection, the women troubles. He will never find peace, not in the late 1960s. Not when his apartment's being robbed because of his carelessness, not when he's ignored his children for a married neighbor.

So where is the show going? What's the next TV writer hook to get us through the next episode? Stay tuned, I guess.

Mad Men: The One Where MLK Gets It

It wasn't a prediction I made in a public forum, but those are words I said to another human in advance of Sunday's episode.

Yes it's a spoiler, and yes it's as insensitive as Harry Crane bitching about missed commercial advertising opportunities with the ongoing MLK assassination coverage. Though I enjoyed watching Pete Campbell take the moral high ground with his displaced outrage.

Mad Men lives off these reactions to the times of 45 years ago, and the ensemble's soulful response was definitely something I was right to look forward to.

Matthew Weiner's storyboard also dealt with the ugly riots in the aftermath of the death of Dr. King. It was reminiscent of an incredibly poignant episode of The Jeffersons, which flashed back to "The First Store," George's first store opening the day Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot. George had to sift through his anger and find the perspective to cool down his son Lionel.

But I digress - we wondered how Don & Peggy would continue to be connected after she left SCDP.

After the submarine job by Peggy's firm did on Heinz last week, the shock on award night was a perfect opportunity for them to intersect. And the national tragedy was a great chance to realize what's around them that they've taken for granted.

Don has a son who is growing up, opening Don's eyes for the first time while they take in a double-feature of Planet Of The Apes. But Don is haunted by his own childhood and his own father and realizes briefly how lucky he is.

And Don has great scene with Megan. Despite all the pretending in their marriage, she seems to be the one person who can extract Don's innermost feelings.

Peggy put her bid in on an impressive Upper East Side apartment, and it fell through. So she finally asks Abe, her hop-along hippie/flunky boyfriend what he really thinks. Abe wants to raise their children around "different kinds of people," and suggests the West Side.

I think Peggy's move to the West Side over the East Side is one of the great triumphant, seminal moments in the history of the show, but I'm biased.

Don and Peggy's self-hating, shallow lives in advertising have somehow netted people that love them unconditionally. And it took a horrific event to jolt them into reality.

Cigarette Lighters, A Violin, Headphones And A Shine Box: The Mad Men Season Premiere

There's nothing avant garde about a psychotherapy session in a TV drama, but Roger Sterling on the couch was as entertaining as television gets. Not only that, it set up the theme for the episode and the season: mortality.

"What are the events in life? It's like you see a door. The first time you come to it you say, 'Oh, what's on the other side of the door?' 

Then you open a few doors, then you say, "I think I want to go over that bridge this time, I'm tired of doors.' Finally you go through one of these things and you come out the other side and you realize that's all there are: doors. And windows and bridges and gates, and they all open the same way. And they all close behind you.

Look, life is supposed to be a path, and you go along and things happen to you and they're supposed to change you, change your direction. But it turns out that's not true. It turns out the experiences are nothing. They're just some pennies you pick up off the floor, stick 'em in your pocket, and you're just going in a straight line to you know where.

It is the eve of 1968, one of the most turbulent years in our nation's history. How will Matthew Weiner and the Mad Men think tank handle the ongoing Vietnam War? MLK and RFK assassinations? LBJ's lame duck year? Bloody riots? Black Power? The Detroit Tigers?

They've already dealt with life and death - Don Draper's encounter with the doorman and the surgeon (and the surgeon's wife and Dante's Inferno) all set against the backdrop of his Hawaii trip and a young serviceman facing the horrors of Vietnam and marriage: "The jumping off point."

And Roger's self-analysis comes fill circle as he deals with the death of his mother (This is my funeral!) however delayed the reaction. And his experiences with his ex-wives (both of them) and his daughter are just more pennies in his pocket.

Now only if we could kill off Betty Draper Francis. She's a character that continues to be unnecessary, unlikeable and unsympathetic. That would be a mega plotline - Betty dying (most likely behind the wheel - don't think that reckless driving ticket was in the script for no reason) and the kids moving in with Don and Megan. That would be a significant doorway to inch through. And deal with death in the most personal possible way.

Predictions for the Mad Men Season Finale: Go Fish

Some of my friends who enjoy Mad Men don't like the Sally Draper story arc. I find it to be one of the most enjoyable parts of the series. Her reaction to her parents' breakup, combined with growing up as a young lady in the mid 1960s, is fascinating.

But that only leads into Backtime's Mad Men fishing expedition into the season finale:

1. Sally Draper will do something more defiant and outrageous than anything she's pulled to this point. Her Mom's plan to move to get her away from Glenn down the street will be the next tipping point in her volatile state in the "Francis" residence.

2. There will be some sort of confrontation between Don Draper's most recent steady, Dr. Faye Miller, and his new secretary Megan.

3. Roger Sterling will be marginalized. Now John Slattery has become a bona fide TV star so I don't expect him to be gone from the series, but he will become a glorified consultant a la the role that Bert Cooper has take on this season.

4. As a result, Pete Campbell gets to be the agency's top dog. And SCDP won't have to change their logo as Campbell slides right into Sterling Campbell Draper Pryce.

5. Don Draper's New York Times ad that renounces Big Tobacco catches the eye of some big fish, and even prompts the return of Conrad Hilton, who signs with SCDP and saves them from economic free fall.

6. But ultimately, it will be an episode that ends the season with closure instead of an open-ended cliffhanger and tons of unanswered questions (a la AMC's other show, Breaking Bad).

Mad About You: Another Case of Co-Dependency

The continuing, evolving drama of a night with Don and Peggy told you everything you wanted to know about what this show is all about. Watching them take on a the Samsonite campaign, a mouse, and a Duck in an all-nighter, was very reminiscent of watching the way a mentor and protegee bicker on their AMC compadre show, Breaking Bad.

Don naturally backed Sonny Liston against Cassius Clay that night in 1965. The way he liked Nixon over Kennedy a few seasons earlier. Don liked the guys who didn't brag.

And Peggy is Don's #2 now. Peggy gives don ideas and she tries to boast about it, but he shits on her. At least that's Peggy's take on it. But Don is adamant.

"That's the way it works. There are no credits on commercials."

"I give you money. You give me ideas."

When Peggy complains, "But you never say thank you!" Don is incredulous, "That's what the money is for!"

It is a pivotal night in Don's life. Not just because Don lost $100 on Liston, but because of the death of Anna Draper - and the close relationship he had with the woman who allowed him his name. And Don showed vulnerability for the very first time.

But at the end of the night (really the next day), a "spruced up" Don Draper realizes he has a stable relationship in his life. Despite the death of his great friend, his divorce, and his reckless drinking, he found someone to complete him, and not in the usual way Don relies on a woman.

And the constant shake-up of the pecking order on the Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce totem pole continues. At age 26 (Happy birthday!) Peggy Olson is in a tremendous position at her job. And she didn't know it until now.

Mad Mentor: When Roger Met Don

On the eve of Don Draper's first Clio Award for television advertising excellence, Roger Sterling walks down memory lane to how it became possible. When he met Don, the fur guy. And it's kind of a hazy path considering how much they each drink along the way. Just consider Roger's ramblings in the dictation of his book.

And for Don the award is a culmination of his crooked path to the highest heights of his profession. And after the win, the calculated Draper lets his guard down. First comes the most exaggerated case of hubris, then the drunken blur.

Don still didn't pull a Duck Phillips, ranting out in a crowded banquet room, but his spouting at the mouth caused him to inadvertently steal a slogan from an idiot he interviewed earlier. Then naturally he winds up in bed with a waitress he doesn't remember.

For Roger, the alcohol reveals the truth in his feelings. He's jealous of Don, who always gets the credit and naturally he transfers his anger to any target he can find.

Ultimately, Roger's behavior is damaging his own company. Lane Pryce, the London corporate lackey who runs the nuts and bolts of the agency said so much calling him a "child" in his empowerment of Pete Campbell. This ultimately begs the question, "Who runs Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce?"

1. Don Draper - He's the face of the firm, but ultimately a creative diva who goes off the reservation whenever he fells like it.

2. Roger Sterling - A buffoon who is tied to Lucky Strike, the company's biggest client. But he's a loose cannon (see what he did with the Japanese Honda people?) who isn't up to date in 1965.

3. Bert Cooper - Older than Sterling, his presence is mostly ceremonial.

4. Lane Pryce - He really is in control of everything with a dollar sign attached. But he's just an operational wizard who doesn't do accounts or creative, and is still an outsider.

5. Pete Campbell - This is the best character arc in the 4 seasons of the series. He went from a conniving kid to a savvy, confident exec who is well on his way to running the show.

Pete has been challenging Roger this season, and took the balls of his former colleague/competitor Ken Cosgrove while hiring him back.

The next generation is on the rise on the creative side as well with Peggy taking the balls of her creative cohort in the art department in a metaphorical game of strip poker. "Let's get liberated!"

When she "won," she was promptly tagged as "the smuggest bitch on the planet."

Just another major character evolution on a show where the kings are becoming the jesters, and their loyal servants are becoming enlightened.

Don Draper's Unlucky Strike

While Don Draper isn't too fickle about who he sleeps with, he knows he fucked this one up.

After leaving the Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce Xmas party, Don had left his keys in his office in his usual drunken form. While he was ready to jump on the firm's psych consultant or the cute nurse across the hall, there are some lines Don doesn't cross.

Which of course he did when he nailed his own googly-eyed secretary after she came to the rescue with the keys in one of the queasiest scenes in the show's history. Alcohol is a hell of a drug. Just ask Freddy Rumsen, returning to the agency clean and sober after 16 months.

So what makes Don so different from Big Tobacco heir Lee Garner, Jr.? While the Lucky Strike prince can make any demands he wants (they are the #1 client responsible for some 70% of SCDP's billings), he does so in the brashest possible fashion.

Lee Garner, Jr. can threaten to fire the agency if he isn't accommodated by Art Director Salvatore Romano in a same-sex tryst. That was the likely tipping point for the likable character's departure from the firm last year.

Or he can pull out his swinging dick (figuratively of course) and demean the boss, Roger Sterling, in front of the entire agency, forcing him to be Santa at the Xmas party and putting his hands on Roger's wife. But Roger handles it with charm.

Nobody seems to know exactly what Roger Sterling does. When he comes back drunk from a client meeting, Peggy says, "I can't believe that's his job." But it's the ability to keep the big fish clients, the quirky, greedy, selfish perverts and their insatiable appetites...happy.

So back to the scoundrel tale of the tape:

Lucky Strike's Lee Garner Jr. is a bully who gets what he wants through sheer power and intimidation.

Don Draper uses his power to persuade and use and hurt people to get what he wants, from the same people who only want to please him.

"The morning after" meeting with his secretary was just as icy and sad as it could possibly be. He thanked her for bringing him his keys, which translates into "last night never happened." Allison gets a $100 bonus on a generic holiday card, while Don walks out of the office with the presents for his kids that she shopped for and immaculately wrapped.

Who is the more dangerous predator?

Mad Men Season 4 Premiere: Be Careful What You Wish For

Want to go rogue and start your own ad agency? Well you just might get it.

Welcome to Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, a "scrappy upstart" of an ad agency, that Creative Director Don Draper has just put on the map with a very clever Glo-Coat TV spot.

Now Don Draper is the headline name of the company, even though we all know that's not his name. But as Don plays "modest" to an Advertising Age reporter, he comes across as aloof. In one of Roger Sterling's signature one-liners, he spells it out to Don, "You turned all the sizzle from Glo-Coat into a wet fart."

So the one-story agency isn't growing as fast as the partners would like, no matter how many chairs Don kicks around in the non-conference room.

Want to save the Sugarberry Ham account, with a bold plan to stage two women fighting over a ham Thanksgiving week? And make an end run around Don? Be careful what you wish for, Peggy and Pete.

When the play fight turns real and assault charges are filed, the bail and hush money escalates. And Peggy gets a tongue-lashing to boot.

And there's the suddenly sympathetic figure, Henry Francis (thanks to a very well-placed scene with his mother).

Want a beautiful trophy bride? Be careful what you wish for. You just might get Betty Draper.

As much as I love the ad agency, this is the storyline that resounds. Henry's mother calls Betty a "silly woman," and he's seeing it himself. A spoiled child, who went straight from Daddy to Don to Henry, Betty still lives in Don's house and does nothing but badger her own children.

And for those of you who think Sally Draper is an annoying, ill-tempered child - you obviously don't own the feisty Daddy's Girl home version.

The whole episode comes full-circle, when Don's smart, somewhat risque presentation to a potential ladies swimwear client strikes out. He realizes that being modest is ignorant and tells the Wall Street Journal the more confident and appealing Don Draper story.

Maybe next Thanksgiving, Don won't have to hire a prostitute to smack him around (not pictured).

Big Mad Made Bad Men

I think I've found the formula for the one-hour serial drama, or at least the ones I can't live without: The leading man as anti-hero.

Yes there are layers and complexity and some goodness, but each lives by his own moral compass and will do whatever it takes to preserve the life they've created.





Tony Soprano was the original iconic character of this type. He was the mob boss with a conscience - or at least a sense of one, that was driving him into panic attacks and depression.

He preyed on weaker sorts and stepped on anyone that got in his way, but you could always feel the underlying sense of responsibility. And so could the multitudes that made HBO the new Must-See-TV.

Mad Men's Don Draper certainly seems like an idealist. But he lives off the the identity of a slain military mate. He is a professional scoundrel and serial philanderer. Yet he has million-dollar ideas scrawled out on cocktail napkins and an air of invulnerability, so he is respected by all.

In Breaking Bad, Walter White isn't cut from the same cloth. He was the stooge, a victim of unfulfilled promise on the road to nowhere and had a date with terminal cancer. So the chemistry teacher made his own destiny, creating the purest grade of crystal meth on the market. The series doesn't dwell on the effect of the drugs in the community (which is bad enough), but it does graphically show the death and destruction left in Walt's wake. Yet we still root for him.

Which leads me to Big Love and Bill Henrickson, the self-righteous husband of three and father of eight. Bill may have finally turned down a darker path with his foray into politics, and a campaign for State Senator.

Bill's ability to talk to people and tell them how things have to be is what's most admirable about him. He has Heavenly Father on his side, or at least he's 100% certain that he does. He is straight and true no matter how many dumpster-fires are popping up all over his rather large family. "This will be resolved." has become Bill's mantra.

First Wife Barb is stepping all over toes at the family-owned, tribal-run Casino.

Second Wife Nikki has always been the train wreck. Now she looks to be straightening out the ship for herself and her estranged teenage daughter, but her polygamist compound ties are pulling her back.

Third Wife Margene is the mid-20s hottie whose career is taking off as a QVC-style jewelry hawk. As one of three wives, she's not getting the attention from Bill, and has turned a longing eye at Bill's 18-year old son Ben.

Daughter Sarah took in a meth-head and her son. The Mom took off, and Sarah's been playing Mommy to the baby without alerting authorities.

Brother Joey killed Roman Grant "The Prophet of Juniper Creek," then burned the body. Now he's being blackmailed by Nikki's ex-husband, who has his sights set on being the next prophet.

And forget about Bill's nutjob parents.

But maybe the most heart-breaking move Bill had to make was in his cutthroat political race. He fed Don Embry to the wolves, making him fall guy for a polygamist scandal in Home Plus, Bill's home improvement franchise.

Don was Bill's managing partner and spiritual confidant, and Bill made him "take the bullet" so he could maintain his political campaign.

Now Bill has cast out (in some form) both his son and his closest ally, the two men he entrusted to be Priesthood Holders in the newly-minted Church Of Bill, or whatever it's called.

So while Bill's lifestyle choices and manipulation skills have always been present in what is now the 4th season of Big Love, now he has to make the hard choices and turn his back on the people he's closest with. All in the name of Bill Enterprise.

Bill has flipped, over-reaching with his time, businesses and ambition, and his pride is bringing out qualities we don't like quite as much.

But the show has turned the corner too. Big Love was once quirky and unconventional, almost a comedy. Now the problems are serious and the mood is much darker, and Bill mirrors that.

One Door Closes, Another One Opens: The Mad Men Season 3 Finale

***CAUTION-SPOILERS***

I was always mesmerized but never quite understood the Mad Men opening animation. But now it's all falling into place.

Designer suit-wearing, slick and handsome ad man is nameless and faceless. Since everything is built on lies, he is ultimately alone and lives constantly in the shadow of his own demise. Have you met Don Draper?

He is an anti-hero of the caliber of Tony Soprano, and why do we love him? For his charisma and his skill. He sells people on ideas. He is calculated and instinctive. He is the smartest man in the room.

As a viewer I wondered why we were being sold that Don's wife Betty was the bad guy when she filed for Divorce. Yes Don is thoughtful, and a loving father, but his identity is a fabrication and he's been a serial philanderer. If it weren't 1963, Betty would have made minced-meat out of him in court.

While the scenes documenting the final split are heartbreaking, the confrontation over Betty's "life raft" Henry Francis, and telling the kids that Dad is moving out, it is still the secondary storyline. There's Don's "other" divorce.

When Don learns from Conrad Hilton that Sterling-Cooper is being sold for the second time in a year, the wheels go in motion. It takes just a few short days to turn Sterling-Cooper into a rogue ad agency that pirates the guts of the old agency in a weekend ransack.

First Don convinces Bert Cooper, the company's patriarch to forgo his "golden tomb" to give it one more shot. Then he sells Roger Sterling. Then Layne Price, the London bottom-line-man assigned to gut (and unknowingly liquidate) Sterling-Cooper. Then he has to sell Cooper and Sterling on Price, "can any of you do what he does?"

While balancing the time spent as his family is ripped apart, Don sells the once snot-nosed, now ever-evolving account man Pete Campbell to join in, if he brings his accounts of course. And finally Peggy, who takes a little more convincing. It's great to see elitist copywriter Paul Kinsey shattered when he realizes that Don took Peggy instead of him.

Throw in the triumphant return of Joan Harris to whip their outfit into shape with her organization and logistical wizardry and voila, "Sterling-Cooper-Draper-Price."


The nameless, faceless ad man once again exudes confidence, as he sits in his position of power. And what difference does it make what his true identity is? You'll believe whatever he tells you. You'll buy whatever he's selling you.

Trying to re-org Sterling-Cooper? Break a Leg!

***CAUTION-SPOILERS***

This most recent hour of Mad Men was the best twist-of-fate rollercoaster ride in series history.

I felt Joan's story really shared the main stage with Don, as her life is becoming very difficult. On the day of Dr. Harris' residency exam, Joan readies to leave the office that she runs (on some level) to live the good life as a surgeon's wife.

But as we've learned, while Dr. Harris appears to be a dreamboat he is quite flawed. Joan waits home all night for a drunk doc who was told he'll never be a surgeon, and has to extend his internship one more year.

But the announcements have already been made at the office, and Joan's goodbye cake has already been wheeled out...Until a tragic mishap. Now Jane has the perfect excuse to return to Sterling-Cooper, to hold things together after a crisis.

Roger Sterling's character re-emerges from his short funk with a series of quips, one-liners, and even some practical wisdom.

In Putnam, Powell & Lowe's grand plans for re-organization, Roger was marginalized, completely left off an overhead projector flowchart. "My name's on the wall, but not the chart." He sold the ad agency and now the new boss has exposed him as an empty suit. But at least he doesn't lose his sense of humor.

And then there's Don Draper. Always under control, always has the smart answer. Never tips his hand. Even when Pete Campbell tried to expose him as an imposter in Season 1, he played it cool and won. In this episode we saw a little more of him.

Don was practically giddy when rumors of PPL's visit to the office likely meant a promotion for the creative director and a London office. He was genuinely excited, then was put back in his place with his position on the chart, working alongside (though slightly beneath) London's new hotshot account man.

But just as we see Don as angry as he gets, telling Peggy the champagne sucks, his fortunes turn upward. They always do. Conrad Hilton calls him in for a meeting based on a chance encounter they shared at Sterling's party a few weeks back. And Don talks "Connie" into a deal.

Then Don finds out that his new boss Guy McKendrick had his foot severed in a freak accident at an office party. So Don continues to step in shit. And even though he's a scoundrel, lothario, and a phony, I feel a personal connection to him.

Because as a Dad, he's got all the answers at home too.

Nine-year old Sally Draper has become a very compelling character. You can see the conflict and confusion in her with the death of her new best friend "Grandpa Gene" and the nearly simultaneous birth of a baby brother named after him.

While Mom tries to buy her off with a Barbie doll, Don is patient and hopeful, and makes a difference.

Sterling-Cooper still on the clock Labor Day Weekend

While Home Box was out of the office, the ad men from Mad Men were working the Holiday. Thank goodness. CAUTION - SPOILERS.

Episode 4 of Season 3 was one of my favorites in the ever-evolving Best Show on TV.

First, Peggy's apartment search. It turned your stomach to see her bitter aging mother turn this into a personal affront. But it was hysterical to see her office-mates play a top-notch practical joke on her in response to her stilted roommate ad. My jaw dropped as one of the receptionists pretended to be from Teaneck, New Jersey - my hometown!

There was the watershed moment with Sal and his wife. She knows she's not getting any "tending" but never dreamed why. Sal says it's stress about the crossroads in his profession, but ultimately she starts to see that he has different tastes.

Sal got the gig on the Patio Cola shoot as the commercial director, a knock-off of the open of Bye-Bye Birdie. He was a little too effusive and effeminate when describing the cut to the negligee-clad Mrs. Romano.

Ultimately, Sal's work was excellent but the Patio Cola people didn't go for it. The Sterling-Cooper brain trust was stunned that it failed and wondered why. Roger Sterling chimed in with his only line of the show "It wasn't Ann-Margaret."

But the most underrated (and maybe most compelling) storyline was the building bond between 9-year old Sally Draper and "Grandpa Gene."

Don's father-in-law is an eccentric, tough SOB, still recovering from a stroke but finding a best friend in his granddaughter.

Just as he's starting to emerge as a breakout character, he drops dead at the A&P while buying fruit. In the aftermath, the family enjoyed some levity while discussing the arrangements. Sally was hiding, heard it, and she was outraged by their callousness. She was told to get back to the TV, to watch depressing news and even an early report of violence in Vietnam.

That's something that Mad Men does so well, weave in the events of the turbulent, changing times of the 1960s as storyline plot points.

But the Sally Draper character is clearly affected by this. She was always spunky (although a little chunky), but now you can see her developing into an out-of-control tween.

Outstanding work AMC, Mad Men is just too good to to take even a one-week hiatus.

Mad Men Season 3 Premiere: Limit Your Exposure

For the first two seasons of TV's best drama, the show was the first to really reflect the times. Think about "Happy Days" turned on its ear. If you were a white man, it was your world, whether you wanted it or not. If you were a woman, a minority, a homosexual, you were limited and repressed.

Mad Men actually seemed dark and heart-breaking until Sam Mendes' 2008 film Revolutionary Road really delved into living the Great American lie that existed almost two generations ago. So I think season 3 is off to a brighter start.

***CAUTION-SPOILERS***

Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner took his Sopranos background into this project. Don Draper was the powerful, miserable Tony Soprano-type. And his wife Betty was the unfulfilled housewife with all the material goodies and all of the frustration of Carmela Soprano.

And like The Sopranos, while the main character drives the series, the colorful ensemble is what makes it so rich and deep. And when season 2 got underway, in very Soprano-esque fashion, we got the scoop on where all the characters were in their lives.

In this season opener, there was less "exposure" and more storylines.

The new London management of Sterling-Cooper has everyone on edge that they might be fired. Or pitted into a winner-take-all power struggle, like Campbell and Cosgrove sharing the position of head of accounts.

Salvatore Romano is outed after his first same-sex dalliance is interrupted by a hotel fire alarm, as is Don's effortless tryst with a sexy stewardess. Funny how seriously people took fire alarms back then.

And Don is still conflicted with "the lie," his idyllic suburban family life with a beautiful wife, two kids and a third on the way. Or is he really just the slick, self-absorbed pitch man who takes whatever he wants.

On the flight back from Baltimore, Don and Sal had the conversation that wrapped everything into a neat fortune cookie. The ad for London Fog raincoats: "Limit your exposure."

But even better, there was no cursory character development. There's a whole season to see what's going on with Peggy and her child, or Kinsey's foray into the civil rights movement. Or Joan's own lie with her very flawed heartthrob doctor fiance/husband.

Basically the debut of Season 3 was a major success, because there was plenty to sink our teeth into, but left us wanting more. Isn't that what advertising's all about?

Breaking the Mold of the TV Drama

*CAUTION - SPOILERS*












AMC is now officially a resounding 2-for-2. The basic cable movie channel's foray into dramatic series has been a smashing success.

First Matthew Weiner (Sopranos producer) created "Mad Men," the life and times of a Madison Avenue ad agency in the early 1960s. It's so real you cringe at the constant barrage of sexual, ethnic, and racial discrimination. And you can smell the Lucky Strikes in the air.

Then as a follow-up, AMC released "Breaking Bad," created by Vince Gilligan (X-Files).

Now in Season 2, it's just your average story of frustrated, middle-aged high school chemistry teacher Walter White (Bryan Cranston). After learning he has late-stage lung cancer, Walt decides to use his chemistry expertise to create the purest form of crystal meth on the market. He does this all behind his family's back to finance his radical cancer treatment and provide for his family's future, which just introduced a newborn baby girl.

But Walt is a square. And even though he may have the criminal instincts to pull it off, he doesn't have the connections or the know-how. That's where Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul) comes in, Walt's partner and former drop-out student. Though the two of them are completely different personalities, the scenes they're together in explode with...chemistry.

And their fortunes change constantly, whether it be through their brilliance, incompetence, or sheer luck - good or bad, leaving the viewer unprepared for the next plot twist.

While they're just a chemistry teacher and small-time drug dealer to start, they've advanced quickly up the food chain and left a number of bodies in their wake: Emilio, Krazy 8, Tuco, Spooge, Combo, and Jane (did not see that one coming).

So the stakes are at a fever pitch as Walt tells lie after lie to deceive his wife and Jesse reaches a drug-addled rock bottom since these deaths are crippling his soul.

All that plus some massive foreshadowing ploys to tease next week's season finale. Six days away, and breaking great.