TV Guide: Mad Men

Exclusive: Mad Men Creator Discusses the Kennedy Assassination

TV Guide — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:23:00 -0500

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Before Mad Men's third season, fans wondered when, as in what year, series creator Matthew Weiner would resume the story.

There was reason for the anticipation: In the Season2 finale, Betty (January Jones) revealed to reformed womanizer Don (Jon Hamm) that she was pregnant, and viewers were curious how that would play out. But more significantly, everyone wondered whether or not Weiner would skip over the Nov. 22, 1963, assassination of President John F. Kennedy. After all, Weiner said more than a few times that he didn't think he had anything to add to the historical landmark.

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But Weiner changed his mind. "My attitude about the assassination changed as I got deeper and deeper into the period and after I wrote the first two seasons," he tells TVGuide.com "I thought it was a melodramatic trope the way it had been treated...

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Top Moments: The V Shocker, Brian Williams on 30 Rock and More!

TV Guide — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:38:00 -0500

This week, TV was filled with surprise appearances. Tommy returned on Brothers & Sisters. Rihanna spoke about ex Chris Brown. The JFK assassination was front and center on Mad Men. Kate Hudson distracted Fox cameramen during the World Series. And the pilot episode of V taught us that appearances can deceive. Welcome to this week's Top Moments: Screen Time Edition.

10. Worst Return: Guess who's back on Brothers & Sisters? Prodigal son Tommy, who we last saw abandon his family to join a hippie commune in Mexico. What's he up to now? ...

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Mad Men's Rich Sommer Discusses His Law & Order Guest Spot

TV Guide — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 05:50:00 -0500

It's going to be a busy weekend for Mad Men star Rich Sommer.

Before the AMC drama wraps up its third season Sunday night (10/9c), Sommer will appear in a ripped-from-the-headlines episode of Law & Order (Friday at 9/8c on NBC). "The episode is sort of inspired by the woman who drove the wrong way down the Taconic [Expressway]," Sommer tells TVGuide.com. "I play her boss, and after some investigating, they begin to suspect him a little bit, that somehow he may have been involved."

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Although the role sounds significantly darker than Harry Crane, the bumbling nice guy he plays on Mad Men, Sommer says the two characters have more in common that one might expect...

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Mad Men Episode Recap: "The Grown-Ups"

TV Guide — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 21:07:00 -0500

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After dominating the last two episodes, Don Draper, Dick Whitman and , well, everybody really, take a back seat to the most speculated-about moment of Mad Men's third season: the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Creator Matthew Weiner put the drama of the event front and center, but still managed to show the changes happening in the lives of those sitting transfixed on their couches, those unable to look away from the situation that kept going from bad to worse. Betty finally realizes that her feelings for Don no longer exist. Pete, after being less than graciously not promoted, convinces himself, then Trudy, that leaving Sterling Cooper might be his only move. And Roger Sterling, unable to crack wise about Kennedy's death like he does everything else, realizes only one person can make him feel better after his daughter's train wreck of a wedding ends.

But how exactly do we cope with tragedy? Do we, like Don, talk it away by focusing on the hope for a brighter tomorrow? Or do we react like Betty by immersing ourselves in it and allow it to break us down? Could we be like Pete and misplace our anger at those around us? Or do we take Roger's approach of just being baffled by it, knowing that with persistence we'll pull through? All of those initial reactions, however, give way to reflection, which gives way to honesty. And it's in those moments of honesty that the realizations listed above are made, for better or worse.

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