Emmy Nominations Blog-a-palooza

And two months later, she comes back to her blog...

I spent most of May and June transitioning out of my job as interim artistic director at Heartland Theatre, directing the annual 10-minute play festival there, and actually taking a vacation. It seems I needed some time off. But local theatre and entertainment have gone on without me too long, I think! You didn't get to hear my side of the "Class Reunion" plays -- terrific all around, if I do say so myself -- or the TV, movies and stage shows that came and went while I was AWOL. I even missed the Tony wrap-up.

So what lured me back? The 2015 Emmy nominations, of course! I always have opinions on that sort of thing and I can't keep them under wraps a minute longer.

If you want to see Uzo Aduba (Orange Is the New Black) and Cat Deeley (So You Think You Can Dance) read the list of nominees, you can find that video here or here. If you want to read the complete list, all the way through Outstanding Costumes For A Contemporary Series, Limited Series or Movie on page 11, the Emmy site can help you out.

Here are some highlights:

OUTSTANDING COMEDY SERIES
Louie (FX)
Modern Family (ABC)
Parks and Recreation (NBC)
Silicon Valley (HBO)
Transparent (Amazon Instant Video)
Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Netflix)
Veep (HBO)

Should win: Parks and Recreation, which finished out its run with a triumphant series finale.
Will win: It's hard to bet against Modern Family, which has won the past five years. But surely the Academy is tired of it by now. One can dream... Transparent has the zeitgeist (and a bunch of Golden Globes) but Veep is an Emmy favorite. Still, I'm holding onto hope for Parks and Recreation.

OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES
Anthony Anderson, Black-ish (ABC)
Don Cheadle, House of Lies (Showtime)
Louie C. K., Louie (FX)
Will Forte, The Last Man on Earth (Fox)
Matt LeBlanc, Episodes (Showtime)
William H. Macey, Shameless (Showtime)
Jeffrey Tambor, Transparent (Amazon Instant Video)

Should win: Jeffrey Tambor
Will win: Jeffrey Tambor

OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES
Edie Falco, Nurse Jackie (Showtime)
Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Veep (HBO)
Lisa Kudrow, The Comeback (HBO)
Amy Poehler, Parks and Recreation (NBC)
Amy Schumer, Inside Amy Schumer (Comedy Central)
Lily Tomlin, Grace and Frankie (Netflix)

Should win: Amy Poehler. She has made Leslie Knope a beautiful mix of ambition, good cheer and idealism, and that work deserves to be celebrated before we put Parks and Recreation out to pasture.
Will win: Lisa Kudrow has done amazing work with a flawed character who is too real to be all that funny, Amy Schumer is the current It Girl (and definitely funny), Edie Falco keeps doing yeoman work with Nurse Jackie, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus is an Emmy fave with three wins in this category for Veep plus one for The New Adventures of Old Christine and one as a supporting actress for Seinfeld. So who will win? Probably Louis-Dreyfus. Emmy voters love their streaks.

OUTSTANDING DRAMA SERIES
Better Call Saul (AMC)
Downton Abbey (PBS)
Game of Thrones (HBO)
Homeland (Showtime)
House of Cards  (Netflix)
Mad Men (AMC)
Orange Is the New Black (Netflix)

Should win: I am partial to Mad Men. Like Parks and Rec, this powerhouse finished up its run this year.
Will win: Game of Thrones may have all the buzz, given its 24 nominations and polarizing plotlines (especially concerning violence toward women), but I think Mad Men will emerge as the victor in celebration of its brilliant final season.

OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES
Kyle Chandler, Bloodline (Netflix)
Jeff Daniels, The Newsroom (HBO)
Jon Hamm, Mad Men (AMC)
Bob Odenbirk, Better Call Saul (AMC)
Liev Schrieber, Ray Donovan (Showtime)
Kevin Spacey, House of Cards (Netflix)

Should win: Jon Hamm
Will win: I refuse to accept any outcome other than Jon Hamm finally winning an Emmy for his fantastic work as complicated, screwed-up, product-of-his-time Don Draper.

OUTSTANDING LEAD ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES
Claire Danes, Homeland (Showtime)
Viola Davis, How to Get Away with Murder (ABC)
Taraji P. Henson, Empire (ABC)
Tatiana Maslany, Orphan Black (BBC America)
Elizabeth Moss, Mad Men (AMC)
Robin Wright, House of Cards (Netflix)

Should win: Anybody except Claire Danes. This is a talent-packed category. Tatiana Maslany, previously overlooked, certainly deserves the Emmy for her insane array of Orphan Black clones, as does Viola Davis, who is so brilliant that she makes the otherwise crazy How to Get Away with Murder so very watchable. And then there is the force of nature known as Taraji P. Henson as Cookie on Empire, while Elizabeth Moss, so good for so long on Mad Men, and Robin Wright, a bright spot in a dismal season of House of Cards, are also worthy.
Will win: I'll go with Viola. She was a stunner. Her taking-off-her-wig scene was as good as it gets on TV.

OUTSTANDING LIMITED SERIES
American Crime (ABC)
American Horror Story: Freakshow (FX)
Olive Kitteridge (HBO)
The Honorable Woman (Sundance)
Wolf Hall (PBS)

Should win: Olive Kitteridge
Will win: Olive Kitteridge

OUTSTANDING TELEVISION MOVIE
Agatha Christie's Poirot: Curtain, Poirot's Last Case (Acorn TV)
Bessie (HBO)
Grace of Monaco (Lifetime)
Hello Ladies: The Movie (HBO)
Killing Jesus (National Geographic Channel)
Nightingale (HBO)

Should win: Bessie is the total package.
Will win: Bessie. Poirot is also wonderful, and in Curtain, the show (and Poirot himself) boarded that crime-solving Orient Express in the sky, which may give it some sentimental oomph. Still, Bessie was bold and sad and provocative and everything an Emmy winner should be.

And outside those categories... If you are connected to Illinois Wesleyan University, you will be pleased to know that alum Richard Jenkins was nominated as lead actor for his work on Olive Kitteridge, while Jane Lynch is representing ISU with a nomination as host of Hollywood Game Night.

It's also noteworthy that half of the nominated field for Best Actor in a Limited Series or Movie is British this time out. The English trio are Ricky Gervais (Derek Special), David Oyelowo (Nightingale) and Mark Rylance (Wolf Hall), with Americans Jenkins, Timothy Hutton (American Crime) and Adrien Brody (Houdini) filling out the category. Over on the actress side of Limited Series or Movie, Emma Thompson (Sweeney Todd) is the lone Brit, facing Queen Latifah (Bessie), Frances McDormand (Olive Kitteridge), Felicity Huffman (American Crime) and Maggie Gyllenhaal (The Honorable Woman).

If I'm picking winners for TV movies and minis, nobody much on the male side stood out for me, but I'll go with Queen Latifah as Best Actress. Mo'Nique was also nominated for Bessie, for her supporting role as Ma Rainey opposite Queen Latifah's Bessie Smith, and if I'm honest, I'd like to see both of them win.

The Emmy Awards will be broadcast on Fox on September 20th. I'm sure prognostications will become more prevalent as we get nearer to September. In the meantime, it's well worth your while to check out the last episodes of Mad Men and Parks and Recreation as well as Bessie and Veep from HBO, Poirot's Curtain, Tatiana Maslany and Orphan Black, Transparent on Amazon and Kimmy Schmidt and Bloodline on Netflix. It's all still out there for the viewing.

Very Late for May!

May has been happening all around me and I am egregiously late in giving you the 411. Or 5-11, since that is today's date. Let's get this May party started, tardy or not.

First, Laughter on the 23rd Floor, a Neil Simon comedy that hit Broadway in 1993, opened last weekend at Community Players. There's one more weekend of this Laughter left, with the show closing on May 17. It's set at a TV comedy show in the 50s, with a brilliant, erratic, funny man named Max Prince, inspired by Sid Caesar and his time on Your Show of Shows, as the centerpiece. We see the writers' room, a place a lot like the one the real Neil Simon got his start, and the motley crew of writers, all based on or inspired by the talented but crazy people Simon and his brother wrote with, from Carl Reiner to Mel Brooks and Larry Gelbart. There's even a woman in the bunch, hugely pregnant Carol, who fights for the right to be as funny as the boys. On Broadway, Nathan Lane played Max Prince, with Mad Men's John Slattery, recent Oscar winner J. K. Simmons and Mark Linn-Baker, TV's Cousin Larry from Perfect Strangers, in the cast. For Community Players, Marcia Weiss directs Brian Artman as Max Prince, along with Melissa Breeden, Drew German, Hannah Kerns, Joshua McCauley, Bruce Parrish, Mario Silva, Chris Terven and Andrew Werner. Get all the info here.

On television this week, we're seeing the season finales of Nashville on Wednesday, Grey's Anatomy, Scandal and Elementary on Thursday, and the last episode ever of Mad Men on Sunday night. Late Night with David Letterman finishes for good next week, with Dave's swan song on Thursday, May 20. If you're not weeping after Mad Men takes its final bow, maybe Letterman's will put you over the top.

Over on Turner Classic Movies, May spotlights the movies of Orson Welles every Friday night. We're coming up on a Friday full of Shakespeare by way of Welles, with Chimes at Midnight, also called Falstaff, with Welles playing Falstaff, before Othello and Macbeth. In a nice bit of companion programming, TCM will air a very different Macbeth, Akira Kurosawa's Throne of Blood immediately after Welles' version. They're both well worth watching for their treatment of Macbeth's witches alone. If you stick around for Kurosawa, it will take you well into the night on Friday May 15.

Since we're talking Shakespeare, it's a good time to remind you that season tickets for the Illinois Shakespeare Festival are now on sale. This summer we'll be seeing Love's Labour's Lost, Richard II and Q Gents, a hip-hop take on Two Gentlemen of Verona from the Q Brothers, along with a special presentation of Love's Labor's Won, Scott Kaiser's sequel to Love's Labour's Lost. Click here to get the details on reserving tickets.

Heartland Theatre's 2015-16 season packet should also be reaching you soon, highlighting five subscription shows -- the annual 10-Minute Play Festival, this time with nine brand-new, winning short plays on the theme "Class Reunion," coming up in June; Nina Raine's Tribes, directed by Sandra Zielinski, set for September; Intimate Apparel by Lynn Nottage, directed by Don LaCasse, in November; Bruce Norris' Pulitzer-winning Clybourne Park, directed by Heartland's new artistic director Rhys Lovell, next February; and Love Letters by A. R. Gurney, directed by Ron Emmons, in April 2016. Extras on the 15-16 schedule include one-acts dealing with "A Fork in the Road" under the New Plays from the Heartland banner in July and a reading of An Alliance of Brats, an adaptation of an Ibsen play, newly translated by Nigel O'Hearn and produced by ISU third-year MFA Joey Banks, in December. The lineup is listed here. Watch your mailbox for season subscription details. And get your reservation in now for the always-popular 10-Minute Play Festival, which opens with a special Pay What You Can preview performance on June 4.

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!

The Nominations Are In: Emmy Love for "Mad Men" and "Horror Story"

Emmy nominations (and wins) are always iffy business. I still can't believe John Larroquette won four in a row for his role on "Night Court" back in the 80s, and, yes, I'm still holding a grudge.

On the other hand, Ed Asner holds the record for most wins by a male performer with seven, and there is nothing wrong with that. I love Ed Asner. The more Emmys for him, the better.

More recently, the Academy been annoying me by continuing to toss nominations (and one inexplicable win) at Jon Cryer and the execrable "Two and a Half Men," as well as shrill, annoying "Glee" and shrill, annoying Kristen Wiig, while overlooking deserving actors like Nick Offerman, Danny Pudi, Alison Brie and Casey Wilson, and excellent shows like "Parks and Recreation," "Community" and "Happy Endings." Last year, "Parks and Rec" finally eked out a nomination for Best Comedy. Not this time.

But Jon Cryer and Kristen Wiig are still on the list, with Cryer adding insult to injury by moving from a nomination as Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series category to Outstanding Lead Actor. Oh, Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. I nominate you for Outstanding Attempt to Drive Julie Crazy.

But there's more than just bad news when it comes to this year's Emmy Awards. Thank goodness.When Jimmy Kimmel (standing in for Nick Offerman, who was waylaid by bad weather) and Kerry Washington ("Scandal") announced the entire list this morning, "Mad Men," the AMC period piece about the stylish, sexy, sexist world of advertising in the 60s, was at the top, with 17 nominations, tied with newbie blockbuster "American Horror Story," the FX series being called a miniseries for Emmy purposes, with 17 of its own.

When the awards are given out on September 23, "Mad Men" will be vying for its fifth straight win in the Outstanding Drama category. That would put it one ahead of four-times-in-a-row Drama winners "The West Wing" and "Hill Street Blues" and four-times-overall-with-an-interruption-from-"Northern Exposure" winner "L.A. Law." Can "Mad Men" take the Big 5 over competitors "Boardwalk Empire," "Breaking Bad," "Downton Abbey," "Game of Thrones" and "Homeland"?

"Downton Abbey" won as Outstanding Miniseries last year, so it is definitely a contender, even though critics were less in love with its second season than its first. But opinions were mixed on "Mad Men" this year, too. And then there's "Breaking Bad," "Game of Thrones" and "Homeland," any of which might find itself at the podium.

Although "Mad Men" leads the pack with those 17 nominations, including nods for Outstanding Lead Actor Jon Hamm, Lead Actress Elisabeth Moss, Supporting Actor Jared Harris, Supporting Actress Christina Hendricks and Guest Actress and Actor Julia Ormond and Ben Feldman, the other contenders picked up a few of their own, too, with last year's winner Peter Dinklage from "Game of Thrones" again nominated in the Outstanding Supporting Actor category, "Homeland" stars Claire Danes and Damian Lewis up for Lead Actress and Actor, and Bryan Cranston, Anna Gunn, Aaron Paul, Giancarlo Esposito, and Mark Margolis all nominated for "Breaking Bad." Meanwhile, "Downton Abbey" picked up a whole lot of love for their upstairs (Hugh Bonneville, Michelle Dockery and Maggie Smith) and downstairs (Jim Carter, Brendan Coyle and Joanne Froggatt) contingents.

"The Good Wife" missed out on an Outstanding Drama Series nod, but did pick up nominations for Lead Actress Juliana Margulies, Supporting Actresses Archie Panjabi and Christine Baranski, and Guests Dylan Baker, Michael J. Fox and Martha Plimpton.

On the comedy side, "Modern Family" continues its domination of pretty much everything Emmy, with a shot at its third Best Comedy Series award in a row. In case you're keeping track, "Frasier" has the record in the Comedy category, with five wins between 1994 and 1998. "Modern Family" seems like a shoe-in for #3, considering the fact that the show owns four of the six slots in the Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series category, with wins for Eric Stonestreet and Ty Burrell the past two years. Maybe Ed O'Neill or Jesse Tyler Ferguson will take it this year, spreading the joy around the cast. Julie Bowen and Sofia Bergara are back on the Supporting Actress list, too. Bowen won that one last year.

Other nominees for Best Comedy Series are "The Big Bang Theory," "Curb Your Enthusiasm," "30 Rock," and new shows "Girls" and "Veep." I found "Girls" unwatchable and "Veep" so-so, but clearly the Academy voters are not on the same page.

Lena Dunham, creator and star of "Girls" and perennial nominee Julia Louis-Dreyfus, now up for "Veep" will vie with quintessential manic pixie dreamgirl Zooey Deschanel ("New Girl'), Edie Falcon ("Nurse Jackie"), Tina Fey ("30 Rock'), Melissa McCarthy ("Mike and Molly"), and my favorite, Amy Poehler ("Parks and Recreation") in the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series race.

Lead Actor in a Comedy Series brings back Jim Parsons from "The Big Bang Theory," along with Larry David playing himself in "Curb Your Enthusiasm," a show I thought was canceled several tears ago, Alec Baldwin one more time in "30 Rock," the always magnetic Don Cheadle for "House of Lies," a show I didn't like at all, the irreverent Louis C.K. for "Louie," and, yes, Jon Cryer in "Two and a Half Men." Sigh.

In the miniseries area, "American Horror Story" dominated, racking up nominations for Outstanding Mini, Outstanding Actress Connie Britton, Supporting Actresses Frances Conroy and Jessica Lange and Supporting Actor Denis O'Hare.

For Connie Britton to win, she'll have to get past Julianne Moore ("Game Change"), Nicole Kidman ("Hemingway & Gelhorn"), Ashley Judd ("Missing") and Emma Thompson ("The Song of Lunch").

The Lead Actor nominees are just as stellar, including Kevin Coster ("Hatfields and McCoys"), Benedict Cumberbatch ("Sherlock"), Idris Elba ("Luther"), Woody Harrelson ("Game Change"), Clive Owen ("Hemingway & Gelhorn") and Bill Paxton ("Hatfields and McCoys").

Other things that jumped out at me: Kathy Bates got one nod for "Harry's Law," a show that didn't get a whole lot of notice, and another for a guest shot on "Two and a Half Men," Michael J. Fox is nominated in both the Comedy and Drama Outstanding Guest Actor categories, two of my favorite actors, David Strathairn and Denis O'Hare, are competing for Supporting Actor in a Miniseries, Betty White is up for hosting reality show "Off Their Rockers," and "So You Think You Can Dance" owns three of the five Outstanding Choreography nominations, with former competitor Travis Wall part of the fourth for his work on "Dancing with the Stars."

For all the nominations and all the categories, click here. Stay tuned for predictions as to who will win and who will go home empty-handed as we get closer to September 23. All bets are off without John Larroquette in the race.

Mad Men, the Postscript

This season of "Mad Men," which concluded last Sunday with an episode called "The Phantom," has been more enigmatic, shocking, unbalanced and maddening than ever. As this look at the Madison Avenue advertising culture of the past and the men and women who toil in it moved past the mid-point in the 60s, "Mad Men" has changed up some of its personnel, their wardrobes, and the pace of the show to reflect the new themes rocking America at that time. The Beatles, go-go boots, the Generation Gap, Hare Krishna, LSD, miniskirts, Vietnam and race riots have all played a role this season.

And not all of it has made fans happy. Like Don Draper's new wife, Megan, and the amount of screentime spent on her. Or Peggy Olson, played by Elisabeth Moss, one of the show's franchise characters, leaving Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce in episode 11 ("The Other Woman') and making everybody wonder whether Moss would be coming back to the show at all. Or the plotline involving Christina Hendrick's Joan, the Office Manager, in that same episode, with slimy Pete Campbell pimping her out to a Jaguar bigwig so they could score the account. Or Lane Pryce, the agency's CFO, getting caught forging a check to bridge a gap in his perilous finances, and then, in a final gesture of desperation, hanging himself in the office.

And then there was Pete, played with a full coat of slime by Vincent Kartheiser.  Not only did he act like a procurer with Joan, but he also lusted after a teenager in his driving class and the depressed wife of a fellow commuter, played by Alexis Bledel, Rory Gilmore herself, displaying more plastic acting skills than January Jones (Betty) and Jessica Paré (Megan) combined, while Pete left his adorable wife Trudy and their baby daughter at home.

Of those controversies and the outrage expressed by fans, I am definitely down with the first. Megan did get an inordinate amount of attention, and it did seem to come at the expense of more important characters like Joan, Peggy and little Sally Draper, and even interesting newbies like Ginsburg, the eccentric new hire in the copywriting department. I didn't mind at all that Don's previous wife, chilly, unpleasant Betty, was reduced to a very minor role this time out, however. Her struggles with her weight or the inadequacies of her new marriage were quite ho hum, as most things involving Betty seem to be.

I do have to wonder about "Mad Men" creator Matthew Weiner and his taste in actresses, given the fact that all three of those major ladies (Betty, Megan and Beth) were played by actresses who came off wooden and rote in the roles. They're all beautiful, however, and maybe he was going for beautiful, shallow characters, and Jones, Paré and Bledel are really fantastic actresses who can convey the superficial thing like nobody's business. Plus, of course, many of his other actresses, like Elisabeth Moss, Christina Hendricks, Kiernan Shipka, Alison Brie, Peyton List, Maggie Siff, Talia Balsom, Deborah Lacey, Carla Buono and Melinda Page Hamilton, aren't wooden at all, imbuing their characters with all the warmth and energy missing from the other three.

Meanwhile, even allowing for the general dislike of Megan, Don's relationship with her, and his second try at love, formed the main throughline of the season, and I did find myself interested in that. Not Megan herself, so much, but what she represented to Don, and how long this relationship, based on an impetuous decision to get married after one fun trip to Los Angeles, could possibly last.

For me, the last episode, that "Phantom," provided the answers on the Megan/Don relationship. She was a phantom, a figment of his imagination. At a point in his life when he was reeling, Megan swooped in, young, beautiful, seemingly perfect in ways that made Don's life easy, and also seeming to demand nothing of him. As he felt old and uncool, Megan was a way to be young again, in exactly the same way Roger tried to go backwards in time by hooking up with his own secretary, Jane. But then Megan's youth became a liability, when she acted like a brat over orange sherbet, when she sang a sexy song ("Zou Bisou Bisou") to him at a party, embarrassing him, when she made him listen to a particular track on the Beatles "Revolver" album and he hated it, when she hobnobbed with people of her own generation across a crowded room, Don ended up feeling left out, unhip and ancient.

See that Season 5 poster up there at the top? Jon Hamm's gorgeous Don is outside, looking in.

And what about the undressed mannequin? For me, she's Megan as the fantasy women, the blank slate that Don could attach a lot of positive attributes to, creating a perfect woman who was gorgeous, sexy, malleable, talented, and adoring. His very own toy wife. Over the course of the season, as Megan acted out and eventually decided she didn't want to work at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, but instead wanted to pursue an acting career and then used Don to get her a role in a commercial, the facade has chipped away, bit by bit.

For me, that was what Don watching Megan's black-and-white acting reel was all about. He sees that she is beautiful on film. This image, this lovely girl with the incandescent smile, is what he feel in love with. And it's as unreal and unsubstantial as any other phantom.

So when Don walks away from the set where she is recording her commercial, looking all dapper and James Bond perfect himself, I think he knew the marriage and the fantasy were over. A season ago, he chose the illusion (Megan) over the real person (Faye, the girlfriend he had when he went to California, the psychologist who had his number from the get-go, who had flaws and inadequacies like everybody else). Now maybe he's realized how foolish it was to go chasing dream girls who are half his age.

That's my take on Season 5. It's about people trying to reach for happiness but finding out that one thing, that one Obscure Object of Desire they thought would fix everything, still leaves them hungry, as Don pointed out in an ad pitch to Dow Chemical a few episodes ago. Love and happiness, even financial success, are phantoms. There's Peggy, unhappy and unappreciated at SCDP, going for a job that offers more respect, more responsibility, and finding that her exciting trip out of town involves poodles humping in a crummy motel parking lot, not a view of the Eiffel Tower. There's Pete, so unsatisfied with his marriage and his house in the suburbs, thinking clandestine hook-ups or a pied-à-terre in the city will cure his woes. There's poor Paul, the new Hare Krishna. And Roger, momentarily enlightened on LSD, out of his marriage to Jane, but now settling for meaningless sex with Megan's nasty mom. And Joan, out of her marriage to the odious Greg, more financially stable because she got a partnership out of the whole "Joan Is Jaguar's Whore" deal, but everybody knows what she did and why she's now a partner. And Lane... Gone but nor forgotten. His wife came right out and told us the other partners shouldn't have tempted him with so much, or let him reach for what was beyond him.

After all, these people work in a world of phantoms, of actors and models selling products they don't use, of made-up benefits cloaked in pretty picture and catchy jingles, of marketing messages that twist bad into good, malignant into seductive, and bombs into peacekeepers. Why should we expect any of what they yearn for to be real?

One of the last images of the show was beautifully composed, of our current five partners (from left, Pete Campbell, Don Draper, Joan Harris, Bertram Cooper and Roger Sterling) perfectly arrayed against the windows of their new, currently blank, space. They've got money rolling in, enough to expand, they've reached a new height in the agency's short history, and what happens next is all up to them. And yet... And yet. Who thinks these business successes will make any of them any happier, more content, or more complete as human beings?

I'll be there, first in line, to see how that translates in Season 6, whenever we get it. Just like the characters inside "Mad Men," I'm already hungry for more.

"Mad Men" Returns With Love, Sex and a Need to Come In From the Cold

It feels like a long, long time since we last saw dapper Don Draper, smarty pants Peggy Olson, ambitious Pete Campbell, bodacious office manager Joan, silver fox Roger Sterling and the rest of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, the ad agency at the center of "Mad Men."

"Mad Men" came back in style last night with the two-hour season 5 premiere, answering some of the pressing questions we'd all been buzzing about since Don & Co. left us in October, 2010. So, yes, Don (the gorgeous Jon Hamm) did marry his toothy secretary, Megan (Jessica Pare). And yes, Joan (Christina Hendricks) did have the baby that we all know came from a midnight tryst with Roger Sterling (John Slattery), even if she's pretending it belongs to her creepy husband, an army doctor serving in Vietnam. Pete (Vincent Kartheiser) and Trudy (Alison Brie) have a baby now, too, plus they're living in the suburbs in a house that looks curiously like the one Don used to live in with his previous wife, Betty the Ice Queen. Lane (Jared Harris), the slightly odd Englishman who stuck around after the British invasion, has somehow convinced his wife to stay in the U.S., even though money is tight for them and he seems decidedly unhappy. Peggy (Elisabeth Moss) is also still with her boyfriend, the underground journalist who is unlike anybody else on the canvas but should be right at home when politics get radical (Turn on, tune in, drop out?) as we move into the late 60s.

We open season 5 on Memorial Day weekend, 1966. I don't exactly know why, except that maybe 9-to-11-ish is when our brains are most susceptible to mass media, but I have specific memories of almost every television show on the air from 1965-67 and a lot of the pop music hits. So the era we are now in on "Mad Men" looks and sounds very familiar to me. Deja vu all over again. Don's wide-open new apartment with Megan, all harvest gold and pop orange, with a huge sunken living room and endless hallways, looks like what we were seeing in the New York apartment in "Family Affair" or the swanky places the spies would have cocktails in "The Man From U.N.C.L.E."

And the clothes... Megan, as a 20-something, showed up in psychedelic colors and mini-skirts, while Peggy has a shorter flip, but still a flip, and the geometric patterns of "That Girl."Yes, they are definitely channeling the right mood for MY 1966.

And as for the plot... It seems everybody is on the outside looking in (see poster, above), searching for some sense of belonging, of fitting in, from the beginning, from the line of black equal employment protesters outside their offices on Madison Avenue, to Joan wondering if her job is waiting for her and feeling pretty much at sea as a mom, Lane obsessing over the photo of a woman he's never met, one who seems very inappropriate for him, Pete wishing he still lived in the city because he hates the Burbs, Roger clinging to his lonely, sterile white office, and Don and Roger looking across a crowded room at Megan and the hipsters, the younger generation, laughing about something that Sterling and Draper are too old fogeyish to understand.

We got some gaps going on here. We've also got themes that go back to the very beginning of "Mad Men." Who are these people, really? Are they defined by where they live and what they do for a living? Or by the people they choose to sleep with or share their lives with? Will they ever find the perfect place where they don't have to worry about shifting sands under their feet, where they truly belong?

Peggy comments that she doesn't recognize the new Don, the happily married man who seems to be smiling and kind and not bullying clients. To be sure, Don and Megan are in a honeymoon phase at the outset, all snuggly and sexy and touchy touchy. But then Megan throws him a a surprise party for his birthday, bringing Work People into his home, mixing Don's worlds and really, really, making the wrong call as far as her new husband is concerned. (I have to agree, by the way, that Megan should never have performed her sexy "Zou Bisou Bisou" dance as a birthday gift in front of the entire office. Not only does it make Don uncomfortable because it's so intimate, but COME ON, Megan! You work with these people, too! Do you really want to face your co-workers after basically doing a lapdance in front of them? Even if it hadn't been all wrong for Don's personality, it is clearly wrong for a woman who wants to be taken seriously at work.)

But it's when they're alone and Don watches her, stripped down to some racy black undies, on all fours "cleaning the house" that bits of the old Don emerge, the one who liked it hard and cruel with Bobbie Barrett, the one who always retreats to lust and mindless sex when times get tough. Megan seemed to understand that, too, with her little "You can't have this" games. She may be less flinty and more emotionally stable than Betty, but there doesn't appear to be much more than sex keeping those two together, which doesn't bode well for their future.

And oddly, there were hints that there be something brewing with Don and Joan. Joan's mother suggested that Megan wouldn't want Joan back at the office, getting too close to Don, plus Joan had a line reflecting on just how handsome Don Draper is. Where did that come from? Is it going anywhere? I hope not.

Some other good things about the episode: Betty was nowhere to be seen, Sally (Kiernan Shipka) is just as awesome as ever, Pete absolutely deserved a bigger office (although why Harry had one in the first place I don't know. Harry's not a partner, is he?), I still love Trudy, John Slattery's Roger gets the best lines and delivers them perfectly, and I absolutely adore Dusty Springfield's "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me," which played over the closing credits. Word is that the song was a late replacement for Dusty's version of "The Look of Love," which has a very different mood. "You Don't Have to Say You Love Me" is a darker song, post-break-up, with the woman intending to follow the guy and "beg him to come home," even though she's well aware he doesn't really care about her anymore, while "The Look of Love" indicates there might actually be some feeling there. Hmmm... If "Look of Love" was the first choice, maybe Don does have real feelings for Megan, or her for him. Or maybe it was meant ironically? Oh, "Mad Men." You and the endless questions you pose. There is never going to be a tidy resolution of anything, is there?

All in all, I found this a very satisfying return, reeling me back into the world of "Mad Men" with sneaky scenes full of subtext and a whole lot of the maddening character mysteries that creator Matthew Weiner weaves so well.

Welcome back, "Mad Men," and your dirty little secrets, too.

"Mad Men" Brings on the Mannequin Madness to Start Season Five

It's been a long wait, but "Mad Men" -- the curiously addictive (and beautifully dressed) drama about the life of advertising men and women in the 1960s* -- is finally back. Or almost back. We still have a few weeks to wait.

To build some buzz for the show's return March 25, AMC has been releasing teaser videos that reveal almost nothing about what will befall gorgeous, tortured Don Draper and his ad pals in this 5th season. Now we have a new poster to go with the video, and it's hard to tell whether it and its mannequins in a store window reveal anything or not.

"Mad Men" creator Matthew Weiner told the New York Times that the poster is intended to be "a dreamlike image," one that is "'a nonverbal representation of where my head is at and where the show will be."

He also promises in the article linked above that by the end of the season, we will all understand why exactly this poster was chosen to represent the new season.

Hmmm...

When last we saw Don, he had just proposed to his secretary after knowing her for about five minutes. She'd filled in as babysitter when he took his kids (he has three from his terrible marriage to Ice Queen Betty) to California, and pretty much did a turn as Maria from "The Sound of Music" in charming him and his children. Oh, and the reason Don needed a babysitter to go to California was that stupid, annoying Betty got into a snit and hauled off and fired loyal household help Carla, the only real mother the Draper children have ever known, just to prove to TV Land that she really is as big a moron as we all suspected. But, hey, Betty did finally deign to move her frosty white butt out of the Draper home, so there is that. We also got the idea that Betty's new husband sees through her petty little games and that this marriage won't do any better than #1.

Back at the office, red-hot office manager Joan has been promoted to Director of Agency Operations without a salary increase, plus she's pregnant, and Roger, who has a trophy-secretary wife of his own, may be the father; Pete is unhappy that the firm has added Ken Cosgrove without telling him; and Peggy has scored an important pantyhose account, mostly because she has moxie and is pretty darn awesome at her job. Not that Don notices, what with the toothy eye candy on his arm and the diamond ring on the eye candy's finger.

So what of the poster and what it tells us about the direction all those stories are taking, now that we finally get to see what happens next for Don and Joan and Pete and Peggy?

Is the mannequin picture supposed to signify that Don finally realizes how shallow his life and his view of women is? That Don will continue to reveal nothing of himself (since the male mannequin is fully dressed) while the women in his life are naked and vulnerable? That he has all the power, while everybody else dances (and strips) for his pleasure? That he is as fake and as insubstantial as the mannequins, given that his ghostly image is superimposed between them? That the "perfect picture" of a husband and wife never did exist, and he needs to stop trying to paint himself into such a picture? That Don is going to turn into Hugh Hefner, avec smoking jacket and slippers and naked women with lingerie at their ankles? That the old ways are gone, that men in smoking jackets and women in frilly lingerie are being cleared out of the window to make room for bell-bottom jeans, psychedelic miniskirts and Nehru jackets?

I don't know. But it seems clear there are implications about sex and power in that poster.

New episodes of "Mad Men" begin on March 25 with a special two-hour season premiere.

*"Mad Men" and its ad men started in the 50s, but are now up to the late 60s, story-wise.