The producers of Mad Men have imposed a lockdown on season five – and as a result, we know almost nothing about the debut episode.
Highbrow publications, pop culture blogs, and media outlets that think themselves too smart for Dancing with the Stars are absolutely breathless with anticipation for the fifth season of Mad Men, which returns to AMC this Sunday after 17 long months off the air.
From the covers of men's magazines, to period portraits of the cast and even an actuary's assessment of when Don Draper will die, just about every conceivable aspect of the show has been covered and covered again.
Still, there is one thing you won't read in any interview, profile, or preview of the critical darling: information about what actually happens in season five – which British viewers will be able to salivate over from Tuesday.
Matthew Weiner, the creator and mastermind of this show that examines the interior lives of a bunch of ad execs in 1960s New York, has always been tight-lipped about plot details in upcoming episodes of his show, but this time around he's issued an all-out fatwa on even the tiniest description of events pertaining to the new installments. He won't even let anyone reveal which year the action takes place. (Though we did learn that it's around 1967 thanks to a misappropriated Dusty Springfield song.)
Weiner's vehemence about the audience approaching the two-hour season premiere with a tabula rasa stems from a review the New York Times ran for season four which revealed that Don and his wife Betty were no longer married (spoiler alert!). The funny thing is, as outraged as he claimed to be, the audience already knew about the end of the union based on a scene at the end of season three where Betty flies off to Reno to untie her and Don's rather complicated knot.
But isn't that how we talk about television now? You can't turn on the two millionth season of CSI without knowing that there is going to be a new serial killer or that one of the leads is leaving the show or a key character is going to be murdered. Television shows are covered with a scrutiny historically reserved for holy scripture and patent documents, where every casting announcement warrants a blog post and every network puts out "trailers" to get the rabid audience worked up about another skein of episodes.
This did not happen with Mad Men. We've been treated to promos that feature clips from past seasons and posters slapped on every bus and subway car in New York featuring nothing more than a man falling through white space, the same graphic we've seen in the opening credits of every stinking episode of the show. There's not a hint and hardly any clue. We don't know if Don really married his gap-toothed secretary, if Roger and Joan are going to keep sleeping together, or if Peggy is finally (finally!) going to get the respect she deserves.
No, we know none of it, and it's enough to drive you absolutely batty. What's even more infuriating is that Mad Men is the only show that could get away with such a stunt. It's the only hour of television where the quality of those past episodes – the brilliant dark brooding about identity and the indictment of the American dream – speaks to what we're going to get over the next 13 weeks.
Those who are fans of the show are going to be tuning in no matter what year it is or if stupid secretary Megan is around or not. We'll do it because we love what the show has to offer. While some new fans might be kept away because of this paucity of previews, the faithful will keep returning even if season five was set on a space station in 2074. That's how much faith we have. (And wouldn't it be a hoot to think of Don coming up with 3D holographic ads for rocket fuel?)
The reason everyone is so excited about another trip down Mad Men's memory lane has nothing to do with the sorted details of what's going to happen, it's the motivation behind those actions that makes the drama so intoxicating. It's the long silences and knowing looks, the tortured psychologies and shifting alliances. All of those fawning profiles know the same thing: Mad Men is potentially the best show on television.
Edited from: guardian.co.uk 22/3/12
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