TRULY MADLY: The first season of Mad Men � AMC�s surprise hit from last summer � is getting a replay on CTV here starting this Sunday in anticipation of season two�s debut on the A Channel in the fall as well as the DVD box set of season one is due out next month -- which would probably explain why you can�t throw an empty Johnny Walker Black bottle around here without hitting an ad or cover story about the show.
Flawed and inconsistent, even unbelievable, Mad Men has a pointedly selective take on the period when it�s set � the button-down, pre-Beatles early �60s, with its booze-swilling, philandering adults, cigarette-smoking pregnant moms and silent, seething youth. I love the show, flaws and all, which is why I can�t help but be intrigued by the season two rumours escaping from the set around now.
Late last week, USA Today ran a piece in which creator Matthew Weiner said that the second season will take place after what seems to be a popular trend in TV dramas � a leap forward in time. Shows such as Lost, Battlestar Galactica and Desperate Housewives have all hit the fast-forward button to spin their wheels and accelerate forward out of sticky dramatic spots, but Weiner says that Mad Men�s leapfrog won�t be a big one:
�The world has changed a little bit, but the stories will involve two things: One is that you have to live with the consequences of your actions, and (the other is) people don't change," he says. Viewers "will be seeing their old friends, but they will have new problems.�
Sorry to bum out the viewers who intend to make their way through the show for the first time starting this Sunday, but a little recap is called for here. In short, Don has won the firm the Kodak account but is alone on Thanksgiving; Nixon has lost to Kennedy, Peggy had a baby, and Dylan was playing on the soundtrack as the credits rolled, even though the soon-to-be-former-Robert Zimmerman hadn�t even arrived in Greenwich Village or recorded a note by late 1960. The Dylan, I suppose, meant that a hard rain was gonna fall or the times they were a changin� or something like that, which Weiner has just confirmed, historical anachronism notwithstanding.
All the main players from season one are in place when season two begins, but Weiner says that �you will know that something different has happened.� With the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis to help colour the background � I can�t wait to see how Weiner handles Kennedy�s assassination � Mad Men has a lot to play with before the first kid comes home from college with long hair and a copy of Rubber Soul and a few of the younger guys at Sterling Cooper get together to smoke some tea instead of swilling scotch to try and get a feel for the youth market.
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