Lionsgate's TV distribution honcho Jim Packer sat down with Variety to talk features, digital and "Anger Management" (see related), and he took a victory lap for the banner's "Margin Call," which earned a best screenplay nom from the Academy today. "We did day-and-date with theatrical for 'Margin Call,'" he said. "It worked with theaters, it worked with VOD, and now it has a best screenplay nomination. You had pundits saying, 'it's not a real theatrical movie!' Well, yes it is." The VOD promotion, he said, was just good sense for a brainy indie film. "Could you have spent $25 million advertising for P&A (promotion and advertising)? Well, maybe if money was silly and you didn't care, but there are a lot of great movies that just won't justify a $25 million P&A spend."

***

At a Tuesday NATPE session in Miami, Viacom Entertainment group prexy Doug Herzog admitted to an aud of TV industryites that the company had gone in the wrong direction with guy-centric cabler Spike. "We were so focused on young guys that we chased everybody else away," he said. "We were too young, and too guy." The net, he said, is in unscripted-only mode until its financials start to look up, and it's looking into content that will appeal to a broader base. On a lighter note, Herzog said the hardest thing about running Comedy Central was trying to be funny. "I found that being cool at MTV was a lot easier," he laughed. "I could fake that."

***

This year's Tartikoff honorees all held court on Wednesday after the gala awards cermony. Matt Weiner's Wednesday session was among the best-attended of the confab. The "Mad Men" creator talked about how the indirect inspiration for his hit series - Reganomics. "I was going to college during the Reagan eighties and all these people who had grown up in the sixties had gotten very conservative and were still talking about how they had invented sex." College, he said, was a weird experience in that environment, especially after the AIDS crisis hit. "It's not still the sexual revolution when they give you a dental dam in your freshman orientation kit," he said ruefully. "I'm not kidding."

He also gave with the show's direct progenitor - "The Great Gatsby." "It's like the Bible now," he said. "It's not a bad thing to say that you've been influenced by or stolen from, but if Fitzgerald was here now he'd be like, 'Hey, you stole my story!'"

Weiner also said that incorporating season-long arcs had helped ground the show, and that the sometimes absurd power plays between characters that drive a lot of TV drama weren't for him.

"There are people who do it amazingly, but I can't do it," he said. "Don would have been an astronaut by the end of the season. Really, he would have been. 'The space program is calling, Don!"

We’ve come a long way in 13 weeks. “Mad Men” covered an incredible amount of territory in its just-wrapped third season, weaving social, cultural and political issues of the day (mid-to-late 1963) into its tapestry of the lives, loves and ambitions of a wonderfully distinct group of characters. “Mad Men” creator/exec producer

Matthew Weiner was kind enough to spend an hour on the phone sharing his thoughts about the grand design of the season, though he was careful not to say a word about Sunday’s finale, which I hadn’t seen at the time we spoke (Nov. 5).

How did you wrap your arms around something as monumental as the Kennedy assassination?

We have an experience to measure it against. I think 9/11 is a very close experience – it’s very different kind of experience but I was definitely trying to recreate the sensation that we had on that day: The collective shock, the loss of faith in institutions.

That’s why I did the thing about the heating and the air conditioning going off in and Hildy saying ‘The building will take care of it.’ Right there it was a way to say that (Sterling Cooper) is an institution. Marriage is an institution, the wedding is an institution, work is an institution, family is an institution.

Dramatically I wanted to hit the audience by surprise. We were going to do it in (episode) 11 originally and then we had enough story to push it into 12. It was never going to be the last episode because I wanted it to hit the characters and the audience in the way that it did. The episode starts out as a regular episode and then it takes a left turn.

You telegraphed it through the glimpse of the invitation for Margaret’s wedding on Nov. 23.

It’s kind of a ‘Twilight Zone’ move. (Alerting the aud that) this is going to happen this year and these people don’t know it.

After a season of twists, turns, trysts and trips (Roma anyone?), we're in the home stretch for what should be a momentous third-season finale for "Mad Men" on Sunday night.

Yes, I know that Weiner is of the David Chase/"Sopranos" school where the big, big stuff usually happens in the penultimate episode. And certainly, the JFK assassination in last week's episode, "The Grown Ups," set a number of interesting things in motion. But it's folly to predict this show (remember, Roger Sterling actually turned down an opportunity for cheap-and-easy drunken sex just a few episodes ago) -- so why bother.

Watch this space on Sunday night for a Q&A with the maestro himself, Matthew Weiner. We had a nice long chat on Thursday morning about the big themes and the grand design of this season, though he said not a peep about the finale. I've been spoiled with advance screeners for episodes this season (usually landing on my desk on the Fridays) but not for the season finale. I'll watch it like a civilian and do my best to make sense of it before the bars close (L.A. time).

The Q&A will pop up right after the finale ends, or a little after 11 p.m. (L.A. time). Matt, as always, covers a wide range of territory -- he offers some particularly interesting insights into the foot fiasco from "Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency."

Can you guess who he's talking about with this observation: "His use of silence is such an advanced concept of acting."

"Mad Men" fever is upon us.

Although I've already seen the season opener, I'm still excited for Sunday's preem because it's the official start of season three -- and it means I only have another week to wait for fresh meat. If the first seg is any guide, we're in for a heck of a ride.

Please watch this space on Mondays for episode recaps. I enjoy doing them, even though it keeps me up late on Sunday nights, because writing helps me sort out the intricacies, cultural and literary references and foreshadowing of this most intricately crafted series. At least on my best recaps. However, the oh-so-prolific Alan Sepinwall of the New Jersey Star-Ledger and the What's Alan Watching blog always puts me to shame with his insights and analysis.

There's not much I can add here to the tsunami of pre-launch coverage that "Mad Men" has received in the past few weeks. The most intriguing thing I've heard about the show's future was an offhand comment from creator-exec producer Matthew Weiner during the cocktail party that AMC hosted during the Television Critics Assn. press tour in Pasadena.

Weiner was talking about how happy he was to go into the third season knowing from the get-go that the show was assured of having a fourth season. When asked how long he would ideally like the series to run, Weiner paused for a moment and then replied: "I'd like to see us do the decade" of the 1960s.

Betty at Woodstock? Sal at Stonewall? Paul at the Monterey Pop Festival? Sally joins a commune? Don Draper joins the Nixon administration? I can just see Pete Campbell getting stomped by Hells Angels at Altamont.

Can't wait for Sunday...

Now that season three of"Mad Men" is all systems go, Matt Weiner says he's not expecting to make many changes in the writing staff from last season.

Fans will be happy to hear that the talented Robin Veith is definitely coming back for more adventures with the Sterling Cooper gang. (Veith last season penned three segs: "The New Girl" and co-wrote with Weiner "A Night to Remember" and "The Mountain King.")

Veith (pictured right) was Weiner's assistant nearly a decade ago when he first started writing the little spec that could. She bounced around a few jobs and was working in a behind-the-scenes role for a traveling circus when Weiner called her in 2006 to let her know the show was finally a go and she had a job if she wanted it.

Another "Mad Men" staffer getting a promotion for season three is Kater Gordon, who was the show's writers assistant for season two and has been upped to staff writer this year. Gordon's potential clearly impressed Weiner last season; Gordon was co-writer with the boss on the finale seg "Meditations in an Emergency."

"Mad Men" creator Matthew Weiner enjoyed the attention the Golden Globes heaped upon his AMC show Thursday morning as he and his wife were in Milan, Italy, promoting the second season for European audiences.

Yet, while Weiner is proud of where the show has gone, he's more than concerned he might not be around for its future. He and producer Lionsgate haven't been able to come up with a deal for season three, and the clock continues to tick.

The lack of a contract is clearly eating away at him, and even gobs of pasta and gelato can't solve the impasse.

"We're supposed to start back in the writers' room in the middle of January," he said. "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."

Weiner has always acknowledged the team effort it takes in putting the elaborately detailed "Mad Men" together — from the cast to the scripts, from set and costume design and all below-the-line categories — but, make no mistake, this is his baby, and he doesn't want to hand off his child to someone else.

"People know the mythology of the script and know I wrote it in my basement," he explained. "People are shocked that the show could go on without me. Right now it's just frustrating."

As for what's ahead for Don Draper and Co., Weiner has thoughts about where the tale leads, but he may not get a chance to tell it.

"This is all a very confusing business," he reiterated. "There's a strange logic to how things are done. I have every intention of coming back and have lots of stories to tell. I'm not done yet. I can tell you that."

— Stuart Levine

The Anti-Defamation League hosted an interesting discussion about how Jews are portrayed on television as part of the org's annual meeting this week at the Bev Hilton.

It was interesting mostly for the caliber of the people who were doing the discussing: Former Los Angeles Times chief TV critic Howard Rosenberg pressed "Mad Men" creator/exec producer Matthew Weiner and Roz Weinman, the former head of standards and practices at NBC and a former producer for the "Law & Order" troika, to go beyond the obvious and really examine the question of how the portrayals of Jews have changed over the years, and why.

The hourlong sesh, held Friday ayem, seemed particularly relevant given the milestone the country has reached in its long and tortured history of race relations with the election of our first black president. It was not, however, the kind of discussion that lends itself to snappy soundbites or easily distillation of main points.

Weiner made the observation that as part of the cultural assimilation process, Jews and every other ethnic, racial or religious minority at some point seek to downplay most of their differences from mainstream WASP culture in the effort to blend in and be accepted. On television it is only in the recent past that shows built around distinct ethnic subcultures have been widely accepted, Weiner said, citing the "The Sopranos" as a prime example.

"When the specificity of who people are is part of the commercial appeal -- that just means we've changed" as a culture, Weiner said. "I was surprised to see ethnic identity come back into entertainment with 'The Sopranos.' I guess it meant the public was ready for it."

Remember how Helen Bishop told Betty Draper a few episodes back that the hardest thing about being divorced was getting used to the idea that "you're in charge?"

In her own twisted way, Betty has taken charge of her life by the time we get to episode 13, "Meditations in an Emergency," the denouement of the awe-inspiring second season of "Mad Men."

Betty isn't the only one who's coming into her own in this seg, written by Matthew Weiner and Kater Gordon and helmed by Weiner. Peggy Olson is capping an incredible period of personal growth with what is quite possibly the most grown-up thing she's ever done in her 22 (maybe by now she's 23) years.

It all unfolds against the backdrop of what is arguably the most tense six-day span of the atomic age. And near the end of this episode (that you don't want to end) is one of those gems of dialogue that will bounce around in our heads for the next nine months until season three arrives next summer.

"If the world is still here on Monday, we can talk."

But to start, let's focus on Betty. Her her storyline has been nothing short of gut-wrenching all season and, in contrast to season one, Betty's saga has been vital to the storytelling and our continued discovery of Don Draper/Dick Whitman. (Cynthia's thoughts continue after the jump.)

Kathy Lyford's thoughts:

Sunday nights just aren't going to be the same. Sniff.

I'm pretty sure my take on the end of the season is not what Matthew Weiner and the writers had in mind when they wrote it but I'm going to throw it out there anyway.

To me, the final three episodes are almost a trilogy, and they stand together, apart from the first 10 season 2 eps.

They had a very Dickensian feel to them to me, wherein all the core characters, most particularly Don Draper, are confronted with ghosts of their past, their present and their future.

Don got a glimpse of what his future might hold in episode 11, "The Jet Set." If he continued on the path he was on, he was in real danger of becoming one of those emotionally bereft gypsies, like Joy and her crazy family.

In episode 12, "The Mountain King," Don returned to his past, to Anna, the one person who "gets" him. In so doing, he was able to regain his bearings and remember what is important to him. And in this finale, which is still reeling around in my head, he faces his present -- uncertain though it may be -- particularly with the Cuban Missile Crisis looming. Does his life still include Sterling Cooper? Betty? Will he have another child?

I don't know. And I don't want to. I want to go along for the ride as it all unfolds in season 3, in its typically tantalizing "Mad Men" way.

Stuart Levine's thoughts:

Talk about going out in a blaze of glory, that’s exactly what the folks at “Mad Men” did in this revelatory last episode of season two.

What I got out of this wonderfully crafted finale is there are crises all over the map here: In the Draper household and at the office, but none greater than the one that President Kennedy is facing in trying to make sure the United States isn’t on the receiving end of a nuclear strike.

Relationships are both on the mend — Don and Betty — while others, like Pete and Trudy’s, feel like they’re falling apart. In the big picture, however, it all means little if Manhattan is a target of the Russkies, so everything’s relative.

Following Don’s baptism and rebirth at the end of the previous episode, he returns home and fully realizes the sin of his ways. He meets Betty at the equestrian center and tells her, “I had to have time to think about things” and adds “I was not respectful to you.” (Stuart's thoughts continue after the jump.)

In preparation for Sunday's "Mad Men" season two finale, hop on over to Season Pass to read Kathy Lyford's fascinating Q&A with "Mad Men's" main man, Matthew Weiner.

Weiner loves nothing more than talking about his baby. In the excerpt below, he's responding to a question about how much of the Don Draper saga he had in his head eight years ago when he first wrote the spec script that was the crucible of this marvelous, Emmy-winning series.

"I told Jon (Hamm) the whole story before last year started. He was the only one I told, except for the producers, of course. And I told Jon about the brother and how the genealogy works and what kind of childhood it was and where he was from. There were a lot of these people. It’s an American story. You know mountain (folks), or whatever it is, coming to New York and shedding the whole thing. That’s the American dream on some level. Even though I didn’t finish the movie I did know where it was going. And I feel lucky to have that consistency and the audience can see that it’s not just being spun as it goes along."

Here's another interesting interview with Weiner that just came into my inbox. It's Weiner talking about the Jewish characters in the series, and it's just been posted as a podcast on Nextbook, a non-profit org dedicated to promoting "the discovery and discussion of Jewish literature, culture and ideas nationwide."

Posted by Jon Weisman

When I heard the name “Father John Gill” on "Mad Men" this season, I did a double-take. But once I realized that the show’s creator, Matthew Weiner, went to the same high school I did, it all made sense.

Father John Gill was a chaplain and teacher at what was then known as Harvard School in North Hollywood for roughly half a century, starting in 1941. He straddled the era that saw Harvard evolve from an Episcopalian military school to a non-military one that probably had about a 40-percent Jewish enrollment by the time Weiner and I were there in the early 1980s (graduating two years apart). The picture at right is from Weiner's senior year.

I didn’t know Weiner at Harvard (though I’ve since interviewed him for Variety), but it’s no surprise that Fr. Gill left an impression on him. He left an impression on everyone. In many ways, Fr. Gill was Harvard, embodying both the history of the school and the thirst for knowledge it encouraged. His religion, frankly, was the least of it for me, the unconverted, but he still was an endearing and engaging (if authoritative) man. His year-long elective, “History of World Wars I and II,” was one of the most popular classes at the school – a bonafide antidote to senioritis.

I have no idea whether there are any similarities between the younger days of the real Fr. Gill and the TV Fr. Gill. Not sure it even matters. (Given that it was at the time, sigh, an all-boys school, our Fr. Gill probably didn’t see very many Peggys.) I just wanted to note that I caught Weiner’s tribute, and I appreciated it. It’s a good excuse to remember a man who helped shepherd a bunch of us kids.

OK, it's official: The supporting players on "Mad Men" are the new Rat Pack.

The "Night on the Town with 'Mad Men'" musical revue the thesps pulled off tonight under the direction of David Carbonara, the series' in-house composer, at the El Rey Theater was a rollicking and slightly risque good time. Best of all, the performers seemed to be having a blast, and it rubbed off on the crowd. It's telling that so many of the show's cast and crew members were in the aud and working the event, which was a fundraiser for the local chapter of the Recording Academy.

Joel Murray, aka Freddy Rumsen (pictured left), was an inspired choice as emcee.

"You look downright classy," he complimented the crowd (many of us went with the spirit of the show by dressing retro). Drink in hand, Murray got the night off on the right note with a jazzy rendition of "Scotch and Soda."

Apropos of the tune, Murray noted that the night was made possible through the kindness of "Mad Men" producer Lionsgate, plus a big check and many gallons of free booze provided by Chivas Regal. (Indeed, the band Carbonara led was dubbed the "Chivas 13.")

"So keep sipping the Chivas -- the more you sip, the smoother it'll go down," Murray advised. But he didn't need to. Of the eleven performers who took the stage -- plus special guest Inara George -- there wasn't a clinker on the bill. And the song selection was perfectly matched to their characters. The night was the brainchild of Carbonara, but he had a lot of help in pulling it together in a matter of weeks from "Mad Men" scribe Robin Veith and helmer Michael Uppendahl (pictured on far left of group shot above).

Mark Moses, aka Duck Phillips (pictured right), followed Murray with a swing-y rendition of "Ain't Love a Kick in the Head." He noted that he was wearing his "Duck-edo -- which comes smelling of booze and covered with ashes."

Thrush George came out to lend her sweet voice to an uptempo take on "Manhattan" -- no need to explain why, for this show.

Michael Gladis (pictured below) looked every inch Paul Kinsey as he strolled out wearing an acoustic guitar and a his tux shirt open with the bow tie dangling around his neck. He launched in to "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright" -- and promptly stopped after about 15 seconds.

"I fucked up the lyrics," he admitted. The second time worked just fine (I always choke up a little at the line "I wish there was something you could do or say/to try and make me change my mind and stay," and this version was no exception.)

Murray intro'd Alison Brie, aka Trudy Campbell, as a girl who really "looks good in pajamas." She wasn't in a teddy but rather a silky white dress, sexy gloves and faux fur boa that she put to good use while delivering a sassy take on "Daddy" -- ("I want a brand new car, champagne, caviar") -- that would've made Sammy Kaye proud. Brie belted in a Broadway-ish way, but after the show she swore she'd never sung in front of an aud before.

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.

POSTED BY STUART LEVINE (Cynthia's thoughts below)

In this "Mad Men" episode titled “The Inheritance,” it isn’t so much the money that’s been left from generation to generation, but the mental trauma and screwed up parenting that leaves a lasting legacy.

For the first time, To start we get a very revealing glimpse of Betty’s family as her father, Gene, has suffered a second stroke — though, it turns out, Betty didn’t even know about the earlier one. Upon hearing the news in a latenight phone conversation, Don convinces Betty to be with her when she visits her family, but once they arrive it’s obvious why they would never come to visit on a regular basis.

While Betty’s mother died a while back, her stepmom is a cold, emotionless fish who doesn’t even attempt to have a relationship with her stepkids. Don looks at this family and finds it hard to imagine how someone could’ve grown up in a house so sterile and without feeling, though her mom was probably much more nurturing. It forces Don to have a better sense of who Betty is and how’s she gotten there.

After all the rip-snorting plot developments in the previous "Mad Men" episode, "A Night to Remember," we take time in this week's seg for a few then-and-now reflections on American culture -- capped by a blast of plot-thickening in the closing minutes.

Before we dive in to episode-dissection, a hearty congratulations go out to Matthew Weiner, Scott Hornbacher, Robin Veith, the ensemble cast extraordinaire and to everyone else involved with the show for last Sunday's Emmy win for best drama series. Well done and well deserved. (Trivia question: In which category did "Mad Men" win its first Emmy? Answer at the end of the post.)

So let's start at the end of tonight's episode, "Six Month Leave." (Quit reading now if you haven't seen it yet.)

As our hearts and minds are so focused on Betty and Don's travails, we're thrown for a loop by the news that Roger has left his wife Mona (played by John Slattery's wife Talia Balsam) for "a secretary" in this episode, written by Andre Jacquemetton, Maria Jacquemetton and Matthew Weiner and helmed by Michael Uppendahl.

Specifically, Jane, Don Draper's new-ish secretary who seems predisposed to rub everyone at Sterling Cooper but Roger the wrong way -- most of all her boss. Given Don's angry reaction to this news, I guess the big question is whether this is enough of a jolt to force him to try to repair his own marriage. He sure didn't seem to be leaning that way earlier in the episode.

"Mad Men" fanatics alert: Some swell tidbits were shared by series creator/exec producer Matthew Weiner and his assistant-turned-staff-writer Robin Veith during Wednesday night's panel sesh with Emmy-nommed writers at the Writers Guild Theater in BevHills.

Most awesome, to my ears, was the anecdote that Veith shared about the unforgettable scene in the seg toward the end of season one where a stressed-out Betty Draper shocks her children by picking up a BB gun to shoot the neighbors pigeons as they fly overhead against a postcard-perfect blue sky. The neighbor had threatened to shoot the Draper's new puppy after the dog got a hold of one of the pigeons.

Veith vividly remembers being a shocked at the age of 7 or 8 while growing up in "farm town Maryland"  when her own mother did the very same thing after her dog, Boo, snapped the neck of a pigeon kept by their very unpopular neighbor -- whose birds were the scourge of their cul-de-sac.

"It was the greatest thing I'd ever seen," Veith said, with obvious pride.

Veith (pictured left) gave us another insight relating to an element in this season's segs that has generated a ton of commentary in "Mad Men" blog-o-sphere.

"Sally Draper mixing cocktails for her parents -- that was me," Veith said, noting that daiquiris were among her specialties. There was a momentary hush in the aud.

Another funny bit relating to a plot point from the first-season finale, "The Wheel," for which Veith and Weiner (pictured above) are nommed (Weiner's also up for the pilot): Weiner bought an actual "Relaxercizer" machine that he found in a thrift store more than three years ago, before "Mad Men" was even set up at AMC, with the idea that he would use it in the show one day.

"That's how I work," he said.

(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.

We're as breathless as Jackie Kennedy was all those years ago about AMC's decision to offer web streaming of the entire Jackie-hosted tour of the White House that aired on CBS and NBC way back on Feb. 14, 1962.

The program is woven in to the "Mad Men" season opener in a way that could only be conceived by a great writer like Matt Weiner. I saw this historical gem years ago, on C-Span as I recall, and am tickled pink (Chanel pink, with a matching pillbox hat) to get the chance to see it again.

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.

Emmy's picks for writing and directing nominees in the series categories are kinda like a state of the craft report card every year. They're often the category where new and innovative programs are recognized long before they crack the more prominent races.

But in a year when Emmy voters seemed to embrace new and different, the choices in the writing and directing heats seem more pedestrian, though some of this year's contenders were so obvious (Bryan Fuller and Barry Sonnenfeld for "Pushing Daisies" Pie-lette, Matthew Weiner and Alan Taylor for the "Mad Men" pilot) as to take some of the suspense out of the race this year. Sonnenfeld (pictured left) and Taylor (pictured right) have already bagged DGA Awards for their work on these pilots.

Sonnenfeld, IMHO, can safely begin rehearsing his acceptance speech for comedy helmer. (Coming from him, it oughta be a doozy.) The competish is strong -- a six-nominee category meaning that there was one tie in the nom ballotting -- but nothing was quite so inventive and visually distinct as that first slice of ABC's "Pushing Daisies."

From my viewfinder, the dark horse in the race could be James Bobin of HBO's "Flight of the Conchords." Bobin, co-creator of the series with Kiwi comedy-rockers Jemaine Clement and Bret McKenzie, is up for the "Sally Returns" episode of "Conchord's" 12-episode frosh season.

Dan Attias nabbed a nom for the "No Cannes Do" installment of "Entourage." Paul Lieberstein has shown that there's no end to his talents by performing, writing and directing segs of NBC's "The Office," and now he's up for helming the seg "Money" Parts 1 and 2 (sounds like a James Brown hit from the early '70s). Also nommed from "Office" is Paul Feig, for handling the season finale, "Goodbye, Toby," which happened to mark the farewell of Lieberstein's character. Michael Engler of NBC's "30 Rock" is up for the "Rosemary's Baby" installment.

Matthew Weiner was probably as prepared as any writer-producer could be for surviving the pop culture tsunami that "Mad Men" has stirred up the past few months.

It's a storm that will now gather more strength thanks to the AMC period drama's haul of 16 Emmy noms, the most of any drama series this year and a first (shared with FX's "Damages") for the once-humble realm of basic cable original skeins.

Weiner (pictured second from left with "Mad Men" thesps and Josh Sapan of AMC parent Rainbow Media on far left) is, after all, an alumnus of "The Sopranos" alum, so he knows about the extra pressure that comes with the fond embrace of the cognizati. (See last month's New York Times Magazine cover story on "Mad Men" for further explanation.) His way of keeping his feet planted on the ground is to focus squarely on the show, his baby that he nurtured for years from a spec script that no network wanted to a sensation that is transforming its cabler into a player in original series programming. 

"The content of the show seems to be resonating with the culture. That's the thing I'm most proud of," Weiner said Thursday during a break from lensing on season two of the Lionsgate TV production at downtown's L.A. Center Studios. He was ebullient about the news that broke before dawn about "Mad Men's" Emmy showing, but he had other priorities even on such a momentous morning.

Before going to work on his own show, he took his kids to attend a table reading of "The Simpsons," something they'd all wanted to do for a long time. "That was a great experience," he said, sounding like a fan and like a dad.

By late morning, however, Weiner was back in 1962. "Mad Men's" second season begins July 27. Can it live up to the lofty expectations that only became grew as dawn broke Thursday.

"Awards are a strange thing," Weiner opined. "If you are ignored by them they become inconsequential. If you're recognized, then it's an incredible experience.

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

POSTED BY STUART LEVINE

David Chase answered one of life's most enduring questions Tuesday night. One that has baffled the greatest minds of the last decade.

No, not what came first, the chicken or the egg? Or if a tree falls in a forest and no one is there to hear it, does it make a sound? The real question everyone has been asking, of course, is the one that has eluded the most elite television scholars since May 6, 2001: What happened to the Russian in the woods?

Chase, the creator and voice of "The Sopranos," spoke to a crowd of a few hundred gathered at the Writers' Guild to discuss all things "Sopranos." The event was an homage to Chase, this year's recipient of the Paddy Chayefsky Laurel Award for Television.

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

For anyone who wants to test-drive the experience of being a television writer, Matt Selman has an easy solution.

Get a group of your most sarcastic friends together in a room, preferably windowless, and try to make each other laugh by outdoing one another with a steady stream of the most offensive, sophomoric and vulgar set of jokes and set-ups that you can possibly imagine -- things that could never air on TV, not even pay cable. Add in lots of takeout food and soft drinks and repeat for a few weeks on end. If your heart soars and body tingles every time you make the room snicker, you just might be cut out to be a television writer.

At least that's the quick-and-easy career counseling that Selman (pictured right), an Emmy-winning scribe for "The Simpsons" and co-writer of "The Simpsons Movie," offered Tuesday night during the "Sublime Primetime" dish sesh with a clutch of Emmy-nommed scribes, hosted by the WGA West and Variety at the Writers Guild Theater in BevHills.

"Don't wait for the industry to give you money," Selman instructed. "Take any opportunity to (try writing). The joy of writing is just as fun to do ... if you're on the worst show on television or the best show...Find a group of friends and make each other laugh. Riff off each other. Go on super-offensive runs about degrading subjects."

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.

He grew up yearning to write for “Playhouse 90” and “The Twilight Zone.”

Unfortunately for Matthew Weiner, he was born about 35 years too late, and as it happened, his break as a TV writer came in sitcoms, not high-end dramas.But Weiner was nevertheless determined to pursue his vision for a series that would capture all of his fascination with American culture in the finger-snapping era of Camelot and the Cuban Missile Crisis, of skinny ties and steel-tipped bras, of the Rat Pack and Sputnik.

By day, Weiner was working on the CBS sitcom “Becker.” By night, with the added motivation of the approach of 35th birthday, he poured himself into penning the pilot of his period-dreams. That was seven years ago. On Thursday, after many a twist and turn his Weiner’s life and that of his pilot script, his baby is set to make a splashy entrance on the heels of effusive reviews and a big marketing push from AMC. The film-centric basic cabler picked Weiner’s “Mad Men,” from Lionsgate TV, last year as the show to lead  the channel into the scripted series realm.

“No network quite got this show until AMC,” Weiner says, and that’s in keeping with the spirit of the show. “This show is all about misconceptions, and our contemporary culture’s misunderstanding of this period in American history and how it influenced who we are today,” Weiner says.

CONTINUE READING TO WATCH A VIDEO CLIP OF "MAD MEN" CREATOR MATTHEW WEINER DISCUSSING THE PERIOD SETTING OF THE SHOW.