(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.