MAD MEN Will Blow Your Mind April 13

Lots of shows have come back from their winter hiatus recently, with Once Upon a Time, The Good Wife, Revenge and The Mentalist all starting up again last Sunday alone. At the very same time, other beloved TV shows are bidding adieu. HBO's True Detective wound up its serial killer drama Sunday as well, while we're getting final bows from Shawn, Gus and Psych on March 26th and Ted and the gang at How I Met Your Mother on the 31st. Yes, that's right. After all these years, after Ted has told his children about years and years of his life when he did not meet their mother, he's finally going to get around to the big event. Except she may be dead. Or not. It's kind of a muddle.

AMC's Mad Men is avoiding the mess that is March by launching the first half of its final season in April. April 13, to be exact. I've had fun over the years speculating on Mad Men's new season based on its iconic poster art. There was the Don all alone in the office season, as the new firm came about, the naked mannequin season, where women were treated badly by more than one Mad man, and the Duality of Don season, where his chickens came home to roost. This time out, its psychedelic Don, with poster art created by Milton Glaser, the celebrated graphic artist probably best known for his I Love NY image, the one with the heart instead of the word "love," or a 1967 Bob Dylan poster. TVLine reports that the man behind Mad Men, Matthew Weiner, had a Milton Glaser poster somewhere in his childhood home.

So what does this way-out, purple paisley pop art suggest? That drugs are in Don Draper's future? Or maybe his daughter Sally's, as she grows into part of the turn-on, tune-in, drop-out generation? Note the sloshy pink cocktail under "men," showing off Don's alcohol habit. And Don's sofa drape position harkens back to Season 1's poster, perhaps indicating that Don is right back where he started, even if the world around him has changed from the 1950s black-and-white punch-card milieu to a 60s psychedelic whirlpool. It's not clear whether he's on a Magic Carpet Ride or in the midst of a Purple Haze. Fantasy will set you free, Don. You've got me blowin' my mind. Is it tomorrow or the end of time?

I guess we'll find out more about that and other pressing questions about Don's job, which name he's going by, who he's schtupping, and what's happening to the ad agency he left behind when Mad Men returns April 13.

Start the Countdown! MAD MEN Is Back in 25 Days!

AMC's Mad Men is coming back, baby! They're scheduled for a two-hour season premiere, as you can see from the banner above, and they've released new artwork to tease the new season. The illustrations were done by a British artist named Brian Sanders, who just happened to have done that kind of work back in the period Mad Men is set in, giving it an Ad World of the late 60s verisimilitude.

Here's a different version of that poster art, with a better look at Jon Hamm's two Don Drapers (one the gray-flanneled-suit ad exec with briefcase and the other hanging onto the hang of a woman wearing a filmy dress. I'm not sure what that's meant to connote, except maybe that Don Draper and his new wife, Megan, are turning away from the gray-flannel world he used to inhabit, even as there are still two sides to Don Draper. Whatever the message in the poster, Don is echoing Cary Grant in North by Northwest, especially the scenes at the United Nations, when it seemed New York was looming ominously over our hero.

From other pictures floating out there, we know that Megan is back and looking even more 60s-ish with frosted lipstick and high hair, that ex-wife Betty and her husband Henry are still around, with all three Draper kids in tow, and Roger, Joan, Pete and even Bert Cooper are in the mix at the ad agency. It looks like everybody has gone to a fancy dress party, including Peggy, who left Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, and junior staff, with Stan now sporting a beard and Ginsberg in a string tie.

It's tantalizing trying to figure out why we're seeing what we're seeing and how everyone has changed (or not -- Don and Joan, I'm looking at you) since last we saw them.

Ah, Mad Men. How fast can April 7 get here?

MAD MEN Will Be Back April 7

The premiere date for Mad Men's 6th season has been a subject of much speculation since Season 5 took its curtain call back in June 2012. I'm a big fan of this spiffy period drama about the advertising men and women who once haunted Madison Avenue, so I've been eagerly awaiting news of its return.

And now we have it!

AMC has announced that Mad Men will be back April 7 with a special two-hour premiere, giving us a look at Don Draper and Company as they move into the latter part of the 60s. You can see from this promotional still that sideburns are in (see Vincent Kartheiser's Pete Campbell on the far right), some people are hanging onto earlier fashion trends (John Slattery's Roger Sterling and Jon Hamm's Don Draper are wearing small bow ties and cummerbunds, while Christina Hendricks' Joan Harris has a gown that doesn't exactly look like a flower child) and the alcohol and cigarettes are still free-flowing.

In this one, we can see that Miss Zou Bisou Bisou is down with the big hair 60s in the fashion of Sharon Tate, Sally, her flip and her white gloves are more Tricia Nixon, and Betty still exists. Oh, and she isn't fat anymore. But all the ladyfolk are still circling Don, of course. I could do without either Megan or Betty, so I'm a little sorry to see them. Sally, I love. You go, Little White Glove Girl.

Although there haven't been a whole lot of spoilers yet for the new season, we do know that it will start in late 1967, that Peggy (Elisabeth Moss) is definitely back, even though she won't necessarily be at Don's agency, that Jon Hamm directed an episode, that the finale episode of Season 5 contains important info about where Season 6 will go, and that creator Matthew Weiner thinks "a lot has changed when the season opens up."

Let the speculation begin! And let April 7 (or some sneak peeks at the premiere episode) hurry up and get here!