Either AMC topper Charlie Collier has a great poker face or he is genuinely unconcerned that “Mad Men” creator-exec producer Matthew Weiner hasn’t signed up yet for the show’s third season.

“As long as we get the writers room up and running over the next three months, we’re fine,” said Collier after the network finished a panel for “The Prisoner,” a 1960s sci-fi series that’s getting a revision for a November launch. Collier added that the “Mad Men” isn’t behind production based on last season’s schedule and the show remains a firm go for a summer premiere.

Although the skein has never been a ratings magnet, its cache is vitally important to the network. The show has a slew of critical support, a rabid fan base and took home the Emmy in September as best drama.

“(Producer) Lionsgate continues to be in negotiations with Matt,” Collier said, with no other inside information to add. “We remain optimistic.”

That’s more upbeat than Weiner, who was upset when he spoke about the situation a few weeks ago when the show was nominated for a Golden Globe.

“This process has been going on for a long time. Everyone knew my contract was up at the end of the year. I did more than I promised I would do. It's frustrating that it's taking so long,” he said.

Weiner may add more from the podium at the Beverly Hilton on Sunday night if “Mad Men” takes home a Globe. Both the show and star Jon Hamm won last year, but with the writers strike canceling the show, nobody got a chance to speak.

— Stuart Levine

Who knew Don Draper had a sense of humor?

By all accounts, "Mad Men" star Jon Hamm did a swell job as host of "Saturday Night Live" last night, even if he sounded like he had a slight head cold. I'm not gonna name names but one "Mad Men" insider I spoke with recently described Hamm, very lovingly, as being a kind of "big 15-year-old" with a sense of humor to match. He flexed a lot of comedy chops last night and appeared to be having a good time.

Among the highlights of the "SNL" seg was this clip below, "Don Draper's Guide to Picking Up Women."

This skit featuring Hamm's "Mad Men" cohorts Elisabeth Moss and John Slattery probably could've been punchier, but Hamm saves it at the end with a spot-on spoof of the show's trademark Draper-closes-the-deal speeches.

Let's call this one "The Hobo Code," part II, in which our "Mad Men" hero Don Draper runs away from his problems in New York, runs away some more and then gets smacked in the face with Palm Springs heat and the reality of how his actions are likely to affect his kids.

Episode 11, "The Jet Set," is one of those intriguing hours of the show in which at first it doesn't seem like much is happening, but on reflection there's a whole lot of moving and shaking below the surface.

In this seg, penned by Matthew Weiner and helmed by Phil Abraham, we learn, to use Ken Cosgrove's shorthand, that "Kurt's a homo," and that Peggy Olson with her strict Catholic upbringing is a model of tolerance and respect for diversity (Can we enlist Peggy to help fight California's evil anti-same sex marriage initiative, Prop. 8?).

We learn that Duck Phillips really is an incredible schemer, with a few martinis in his belly, and it sure seems like he's been laying in wait for his attemped Sterling Cooper coup attempt for a while.

We learn that Jane Siegel really shouldn't be writing poetry. We learn that Pete Campbell is just not a West Coast kind of guy. And in the most tantalizing tidbit, we learn there's someone out there somewhere that Dick Whitman, not Don Draper, wants to see -- "soon."

There's lots more to digest.

(STUART LEVINE ADDS HIS THOUGHTS ON THE EPISODE LATER ON IN THE POST)

Now I'm convinced -- Don Draper is losing his grip. I will never understand what our handsome anti-hero of "Mad Men" sees in the sleazy Bobbie Barrett.

After watching their further adventures in episode five, "The New Girl," I stand by what I said last week -- the woman is bad, bad news. But kudos are in order for thesp Melinda McGraw (pictured above) for playing her so, so well, or bad, in this case.

Although it feels like the twisted Don-Bobbie storyline dominates this seg, it's action-packed and includes the (brief) return of fan-fave Rachel Menken; a very emotional turn of events for Pete and Trudy; the introduction of what looks to be an important new character, Don's latest secretary; Don revealing himself to be an Antonioni fan; Joan delivering big news to Roger; and most significantly, at the 27-minute mark, we finally get a bit more info on what in the world happened to Peggy in the days immediately after she gave birth, at the end of season one.

It's a credit to Matthew Weiner and his team that the show's characters and stories are so strong that they've been able to wait this long to give us anything on this key plot point without fans howling. Peggy's flashback caught me completely off guard, as I was thoroughly engrossed on the Don and Bobbie storyline when it arrived. And the flashback is deftly woven in to shed light on another big turning point in Peggy and Don's relationship that comes in this seg.

Penned by Robin Veith and helmed by Jennifer Getzinger, the episode is titled "The New Girl," and it does introduce us to a young and very pretty new secretary for Don, Jane Siegel (sp?), but she doesn't get much screen time overall.

After giving it some thought, I think the title refers in part to the dynamic of Don's life, and in part to the changes that Peggy is undergoing. I think Don is a pathological Lothario in one sense, and hopelessly insecure (duh) in another. I don't think it's the power of the conquest that he's after, or even the sex per se, but just the insatiable desire to be liked, to be wanted, to be idolized. That's probably a lot of what he's responding to in Bobbie -- she's relentless.

I also think this episode is very focused on spotlighting the sharp contrasts between men and women in this era, which can't help but prod us to think about how much has, and has not, changed in contempo times.

Holy heck, this was a great episode of "Mad Men," packed with equal amounts of arresting visuals and razor-sharp lines of dialogue that will rattle around in our heads all week.

Seg "Three Sundays," superbly penned by Andre and Maria Jacquemetton and directed by Tim Hunter, is framed by three trips on successive Sundays to the parish church with Peggy's family. By the end of this episode, we're all fidgety little boys squirming in the pew and tugging at our starchy collars.There is enough repressed anger and nervous tension in this episode (actually in the Draper household, the anger is boiling over) to light up Broadway, if there were electrical sockets built in to the backsides of Don Draper, Betty Draper, Father Gill (in a fantastic guest shot by Colin Hanks), Peggy Olson and her mother, Katherine, and sister, Anita.

Was it my imagination or in the opening scene in Peggy's church was there an extra volume put on the Monsignor's admonition for his flock to "live worthily" and "bear the cross." These themes seemed to be significant in the episode.

(More after the jump.)

STUART LEVINE WEIGHS IN

If Matt Weiner and his team were concerned about a sophomore slump, they needn't worry any more.
Sunday's fourth episode of the season, "Three Sundays," was fabulous.

For me, the episode was all about children, and how parents treat a child affects those all around on the periphery. Let's start with Bobby. This adorable rascal keeps getting into trouble: breaking the record player, jumping on and breaking the bed, spilling his drink while playing with his robot. He looks to be about 6 or 7, and he's testing boundaries. A kid being a kid.

That's a concept Betty's completely oblivious to, and her reaction is to have Don smack Bobby around, thinking that will teach him right from wrong.

Don won't do it, however, still reeling from when his father beat him, and telling Betty that he wanted to murder his father when he grew older. It might not be a shocking revelation, as it was hinted about in a few prior episodes, but it does reinforce that Betty has no idea about the relationship between Don and his father, or much of anything about Don's past.

Posted by Kathy Lyford

Cynthia's comments after the jump.

The distance between Don and Betty may be growing but at least they have one thing in common - they both spend the better part of the episode fending off unwanted advances, one more successfully than the other.

After Don Rickles-like comedian Jimmy Barrett (not a real person) manages to insult the folks from Utz potato chips (a real product), Don goes into overdrive to fix things. Poor Lois gets caught in the crossfire and gets fired - setting up something I've been wishing for since the show began: Joan is now Don's secretary, at least until a suitable replacement can be found. Oh, the mind reels at the storylines that could emerge from that pairing.

Unfortunately, while trying to convince the comedian's wife/manager to apologize to the clients, Don falls back into his old ways and before getting down to business with Mrs. Barrett, he gets busy with her. In his defense, she did throw herself at him. But, for the first time we see genuine guilt from Don. Credit Jon Hamm, once again proving himself worthy of an Emmy, for wordlessly saying so much in the scene at the Draper's kitchen table.

Don finally wrangles an apology out of the Jimmy Barrett (pictured left, played by Patrick Fischler), by nearly getting violent with Mrs. Barrett. This makes me wonder what else we may eventually discover about Don's past... and his relationship with Betty. Remember after the incident in season one with a drunken Roger when Betty asked Don if he wanted to bounce her off the walls? Hmm.

Poor lost Betty. Arthur may not know much about riding horses, but he certainly seemed to have Betty pegged when he called her "profoundly sad." 

Oh and let's not forget Harry, who finally found his spine (with the help of his wife). While putting out feelers for a job at CBS, Harry stumbles on a great idea and pitches Belle Jolie lipstick a sponsorship on a controversial episode of "The Defenders." (In a nice touch, "The Defenders" episode in question is titled "The Benefactor," which is also the title of this "Mad Men" episode.) Belle Jolie takes a pass, but Harry lands himself a raise and a promotion. Sterling Cooper is taking on television, folks.

Buckle up -- episode No. 2 of "Mad Men" gets the plot engines revving.

(Kathy Lyford weighs in with some very smart observations after the jump.)

As slow and deliberate as the pace of last week's opener was, "Flight 1" takes right off -- with a plane crash at the outset that represents tragedy and opportunity for our anti-heroes at Sterling Cooper. This seg is packed with great performances from the core ensemble.

First, I was greatly impressed by Elisabeth Moss' self-assuredness as Peggy, both in her professional set and in the tense scene at her mother's home with her mother, sister and the infant son she'd just as soon forget sleeping in the next room.

"I work with them," Peggy corrects her suitor in the opening party scene when he asks if she works "for" the drunken ad men crawling around Paul Kinsey's apartment in out-of-the-way Montclair, N.J. (More on that later).

Then Vincent Kartheiser renders Pete Campbell in 3-D as he reacts, numbly, to the news of his father's death in the American Airlines crash. Campbell, as we know from season 1, is a craven, self-centered, conniving creep, and it is a credit to Kartheiser and the "Man Men" scribes that us viewers have any feeling for him at all. In Pete's scenes in this seg, we're shown (not told) why he is incapable of genuine emotion, or of having any selfless feeling for anyone else.

The scene with Campbell's shellshocked but ever-proper mother and brother and Trudy in the family living room was  wonderfully unnerving -- so many stifled emotions I felt the urge to loosen my own collar more than once.

And then wham! Here comes Jon Hamm's Don Draper, a guy you can never psych-out no matter how much you try.

This time last year, we were all pleasantly surprised and comparing notes around the office. "Have you seen 'Mad Men'? It's really good. Jon Hamm is amazing."

"Mad Men" commanded our attention last summer as soon as the first screeners were sent out. Like most showbiz journos, Variety's resident TV fanatics approached the show with some skepticism because of what it was: the first foray into original drama series by AMC, and a period piece. We wondered how you could do a credible job on re-creating early 1960s Manhattan a la "The Apartment" on a basic cable budget.

We stopped worrying about halfway through Joan's tour of Sterling Cooper office with the new girl, Peggy, in the pilot seg, "Smoke Gets in Your Eyes."

"Mad Men" got better and better as its first 13-segs unfolded, as evidenced by the 16 Emmy noms the Lionsgate TV production raked in earlier this month. In a sign of its high-quality construction, "Mad Men" episodes hold up incredibly well in repeat binge viewing, as some of us are doing in preparation for season two and for what feels like inevitable Emmy night sidebars.

To make the most of season two, Variety's Stuart Levine, Cynthia Littleton and Kathy Lyford will be opining here on the show on Sunday nights (or by midday Monday) about each of its 13 episodes, starting this week with the opener, "For Those Who Think Young." (Please consider this fair warning for those who watch on their own timetables and want to avoid learning plot points.)

The three of us have had the pleasure of seeing the first two segs of the new season. We have a firm no spoilers policy in this space, but suffice it to say that we're in for a hell of a ride. (Here's Brian Lowry's review.)

"Mad Men" creator/exec producer Matthew Weiner was walking on air last week at the series' season two preem party at Musso and Frank, which followed a screening of "For Those Who Think Young" at the Egyptian Theater across the street. The Emmy nom glory and the continued critical hosannas are like an inch-thick coating of butter cream icing atop the three-layer chocolate mousse cake that he and his cast and crew get to feast on in doing the show of Weiner's (period) dreams.

As moody and complex, naughty and macho and wonderfully unshaven as Hamm's master manipulator Don Draper was last season --  we ain't seen nuthin' yet, Weiner promises.

"Mad Men" hit the trifecta on Saturday at the TCA Awards, snaring the prizes for best drama, best new show and program of the year, as Variety's Stuart Levine reports. This is probably a good warmup for the Emmycast on Sept. 20.

Stars John Slattery and Jon Hamm (pictured left) already look very comfortable doing the acceptance remarks thing.

It's also good to see "The Wire" (cast members and series creator David Simon goofed around for a WireImage photog prior to the awards, see below) getting some respect. HBO drama was recognized with the Television Critics Assn.'s Heritage Award for programs that are gonna stick around for a while in our collective memory.

TCA kudos were hosted at the Bev Hilton by the Smothers Brothers (pictured right). I'm kinda sorry I missed it, I'll be Tom and Dick were great -- it's an election year after all.

POSTED BY STUART LEVINE

It was probably the earliest ayem panel the folks at "Mad Men" have ever participated in, but the crusty eyes and uncombed hair didn't stop any of the actors or creator Matt Weiner from offering some insight into AMC's buzz skein.

Season two, which starts up on July 27, won't be an immediate follow-up to last season's finale. Time will have lapsed, and Peggy's baby isn't even addressed in the first episode. That will come as the season progresses.

"Trust me," said Weiner, who is adamant about making sure plot points aren't revealed before an episode airs. "I’ll give you the information you need in the most entertaining  fashion possible."

Despite all the well-earned glory Weiner has received, including a big New York Times Magazine piece, he's still concerned about keeping the quality at the same high level as seen in season one.

"The truth is, the success still hasn’t sunk in,” confessed Weiner. “I’m an artist who can only hear bad things. I’m tightly wound and want to please myself. This is where I feel the pressure. I don’t want these people to get a script and say, ‘Oh, it’s a dud.’”

So far, no one has been disappointed. In fact, the cast, which has given flesh and blood to Weiner’s scripts, can’t really relate to their leader’s pessimism.

Said John Slattery, who’s been seen in a bunch of shows lately, including “Desperate Housewives”: “With TV, you sign on in the beginning and hope for the best. At the table readings, everyone is ooing, aahhing and laughing. It’s a surprise every week. The characters go places you didn’t expect them to go.

“We don’t know what’s going to happen and are afraid to ask. It could be your own death. Especially for me.”

Added Jon Hamm: “You think it’s going one way but the material takes you in another direction.”

Hamm offered some interesting analysis of his character’s relationship with his co-workers, especially Peggy, his former secretary who got promoted and is now slugging it out with the big boys.

“Don has a lot of respect for Peggy," Hamm revealed. “His relationship with women are complicated. The women he’s attracted to are women who are independent, and Peggy has an essence that’s appealing to Don. He’s not sexually attracted to her but respects her. He sees in Peggy a co-worker to be trusted. That’s very high praise from him.”

While Weiner is waiting for the other shoe to drop and can have a hard time envisioning a rosy future, he’s happy to talk up the scripted-programming future of AMC, the home of “Mad Men,” in glowing terms.

“It can take five to 10 years for some channels to get to where AMC is now,” Weiner touted. “I don’t hear A&E anymore. I hear AMC.”

Hot off the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences nomination vote-tallying machine, here are the top 10 finalists for Emmy noms in the comedy and drama series heats. The final noms will be announced on Thursday, July 17.

(My 2 cents on the list follows after the jump)

COMEDY

Curb Your Enthusiasm
Entourage
Family Guy
Flight of the Conchords
The Office
Pushing Daisies
30 Rock
Two and a Half Men
Ugly Betty
Weeds

DRAMA

Boston Legal
Damages
Dexter
Friday Night Lights
Grey’s Anatomy
House
Lost
Mad Men
The Tudors
The Wire

We should've seen this coming. There's nothing Golden Globes voters like better than big stars in new clothes, and that's what FX served up this year in "Damages."

Legal murder-mystery thriller led the TV noms tally with four Globes chits, one for drama series, for star Glenn Close (pictured left) and costars Ted Danson (pictured right) and Rose Byrne.

It was a given that AMC's "Mad Men" would get some traction this year -- Globes voters rarely snub the buzz -- snaring a bid for best drama series and a richly deserved nod for its handsome star Jon Hamm. Same goes for ABC's "Pushing Daisies," a contender for comedy series and for stars Lee Pace and Anna Friel.

Back to the stars we-know-and-love derby, no surprise that Showtime's "Californication" made a good stand with a bid for best comedy and for star David Duchovny. Donald Sutherland of ABC's "Dirty Sexy Money" made the cut in the supporting drama actor; so did Christina Applegate as lead comedy actress for ABC's "Samantha Who."

And in the spirit of the giving season, there was even a little something in the Globes stocking for 90-year-old Ernest Borgnine (pictured left), a telepic lead actor contender for Hallmark Channel's sweet-'n-sentimental "A Grandpa for Christmas." The last time Borgnine was nommed for a Golden Globe, he won -- for lead actor in 1955's "Marty," in which he played a less-than-handsome guy who's convinced he'll never meet Mrs. Right. (With all due respect to Borgnine, and I do mean all due, he was good in the bigscreen rendition of Paddy Chayefsky's telepic, but it's Rod Steiger in the original TV version of "Marty" who reaches down your throat, rips your heart out, pounds it into mush and then puts it back in just in time for him to find happiness with a young Nancy Marchand.)

"Mad Men" ended its first season with a tour de force episode offering numerous highlights, but the pinnacle might have been the consecutive scenes in which Don Draper (Jon Hamm) and his wife Betty (January Jones) each confronted truths that they had been denying. What follows is a transcript of their two monologues — no doubt the two best-written speeches (or scenes, for that matter) that we'll see on TV for the rest of the year.

It was a pleasure to see the cast of "Mad Men" out of their workday outfits last night. They were featured at the Paley Center for Media's Beverly Hills locale to talk about about the stellar AMC series.

Christina Hendricks, who plays Joan, and Elizabeth Moss (Peggy) weren't attired in those long and restraining dresses they wear on the show, but rather in much more comfortable duds. At one point, Hendricks was commenting on the clothes she needs to wear all day long and said that after 17 hours in costume, all she wants to do is go home and put her flip-flops on and veg on the couch.

The guys, too, always fashionably attired on the show in classic Brooks Brothers suits came in sweaters and loosely fitting shirts. Jon Hamm, always the most dapper, came in a sports jacket, natch.

But enough about what's on the exterior for these actors and more about what makes them tick on the inside and how "Mad Men" creator Matthew Weiner birthed this show as, basically, a second job.

"I wrote the script at night while I was a comedy writer," said Weiner, who was working on "Becker" at the time.

"Mad Men" could've been under HBO's umbrella and a great post-"Sopranos" addition but the pay cabler never got back to Weiner after he submitted the script, which he sent off with blessings from friend and "Sopranos" supremo David Chase who told him "don't change a word."

"The plot I shot was exactly the same, word for word, as the way I wrote it," he said.

Weiner, a producer and writer on "Sopranos," says he's heard comparisons between the two shows in that, sometimes, the plots take too long to develop and that it's too dialogue heavy. No car crashes, no dead bodies. He doesn't buy the critique.

"We like to focus on the private moments," he said, "and you don't know what's going to happen. If that's not action, I don't know what is. … Although on 'The Sopranos,' we would throw a murder in there once in a while. I admit it."

For Hamm, whose signature role as Don Draper (or is that Dick Whitman?) has quietly become the talk of TV, said afterward that he's getting lots of calls from folks around town looking to cast him in a slew of projects.

He's certainly more than deserving of praise. It's hard to think of many other actors whose character would be so well liked, despite cheating on his wife with more than one woman, barely spending a moment with his kids and often being a bit unsociable in the office. Hamm has mastered the art of mixing debonair with a bit of diabolical and deviousness.

After reading the script, he figured he could fit the bill, but was far from confident he'd win out other more familiar actors.

"This was the best thing I had ever read and said, Too bad they won't cast me,'" he told the sold-out crowd. "It's the only job where I said out loud that I want it. And I'm glad I got it."

(Pics by Kevin Parry/Paley Center)

— Stuart Levine

POSTED BY STUART LEVINE

Everywhere I turn, I keep bumping into John Slattery.

Well, not literally, but turn on the TV and or head to the movies and there he is … again and again.

He's doing a stellar job as Roger Sterling, one of the partners of the Sterling Cooper ad agency in AMC's pitch-perfect original series "Mad Men." He's also appeared in recent episodes of "Desperate Housewives," played a Republican in the WB's short-lived "Jack & Bobby" and just yesterday I saw a screening of the new film "Reservation Road," where he was an attorney in a small, tony Connecticut town.

And he'll be appearing in the upcoming Aaron Sorkin-written/Michael Nichols-directed film "Charlie Wilson's War," starring Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts. So, obviously, they'll be little to no fanfare about that one.

If the man doesn't have a publicist, he needs one. Pronto.

I probably first noticed Slattery in NBC's Tom Cavanagh series "Ed," which he followed up with a role in the HBO George Clooney-produced "K Street." Throw in last year's Clint Eastwood pic "Flags of Our Fathers" and you've got a guy who knows how to get around.

But back to "Mad Men," where all the actors — starting from Jon Hamm as the mysterious Don Draper — bring 1960 to life like few other series ever have.

If there's an actor whose career may skyrocket now that "Mad Men" is receiving raves, it's Hamm, who, with long hair, looks extremely un-Draper-like in the LA Film Fest Audience Award winning indie film "Ira and Abby" that stars his girlfriend, Jennifer Westfeldt.

Elizabeth Moss, finally, gets a chance to show her chops as Don's secretary, Peggy. Moss was most recognizable in recent years as Martin Sheen's daughter on "The West Wing," but the role was never fleshed out, and now she finally has a character which makes us wish she was used more on the Peacock's Emmy-winning series.

I interviewed Rosemarie DeWitt last year, thinking she was an actor to keep an eye, as she was starring in the Fox series "Standoff," with Ron Livingston. The show didn't make it, but not because of her. Nice to see her land a plum role here as Midge Daniels, Draper's mistress. There scenes are on the short side, so it would be great if creator Matthew Weiner could give us a bit more depth on what makes her tick.

And then there's Christina Hendricks, left, who supplies the va-voom to shapely redhead Joan Holloway. Joan knows all about the blatant sexism in the office … and works it beautifully to her advantage. Which brings us back to Slattery's Roger Sterling, the boss with whom she's having an affair.

I'm glad "Mad Men" launched in summer, where it wasn't forced to compete for attention with the onslaught of fall shows, and was allowed to find an audience that demands something more substantial than the reality glut we get every time of the year temperatures rise.

"Mad Men" and FX's "Damages" give us reason to turn the AC on and plant ourselves on the couch, with clicker in hand.