What's In Store for 'Mad Men's' Women in Season Four?

Leading up to the Mad Men series premiere on Sunday night and in preparation for my pop culture column about the fourth season of the drama, I gave some thought as to what I hope the fourth season will bring for Betty Draper, freshly divorced from Don and married to Henry Francis; Joan Holloway Harris, back as the office manager for the newly formed ad agency, Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce; and Peggy Olson, who got her emotionally and praise-withholding boss, Don Draper, to grovel in the series three finale in order to lure her to his new firm.

While working on the column, I also read a dense, academically-oriented, yet fascinating book, Mad Men and Philosophy which examines issues such as whether Don’s a bad person and why the self-confident Joan is the least progressive of the three main female stars, as well as examining the overall ethical/moral framework of the show.

If you were on the Mad Men writing staff, what scenarios and stories would you cook up for the ladies of Mad Men?

Image credits: AMC.

JibJab Guys Jump on 'Mad Men' Bandwagon

Love the JibJab guys, the ones who make those snarky online videos featuring caricatures of real people. (My favorites are their political ones and the year-end wrap-ups.) Now they've leapt into the wonderful world of Mad Men, as we get ever-closer to the fourth season premiere later this month. (Sunday July 25 at 10 for those of you keeping tabs at home.)

You can either watch the Mad Men JibJab video as they've designed it:

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

OR, you can personalize it but uploading your own photos so that you can re-envision what Don Draper, Betty Draper, Joan Holloway Harris and Roger Sterling's faces look like.

It really amazes me to see in how many different ways people take something like a single TV show and then add their own creative twist to it, like with the Mad Men Yourself images and the book I'm reading in advance of the new season, Mad Men and Philosophy: Nothing is as it Seems. (A very scholarly read, though with many cool observations.)

The Evolution of Peggy Olson, in Pictures

Promotional material for Mad Men's fourth season is starting to pop up all over the place.

The latest source is USA Today's Pop Candy blog which ran several still photos from the new season including one startlingly different image of Peggy Olson. This got me to thinking about how much Peggy's changed over the past few seasons, going from Don's brand spankin' new secretary who wasn't sure if she should flirt with him, to the first female copywriter at Sterling Cooper, and to a pivotal member of the new ad agency Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce who's having an affair with Duck.

Here's Peggy from season one, fresh from secretarial school:

Peggy looked much different later on in season one:

Peggy, post-promotion (post-baby), in season two, after shedding her extra weight:

Season three's Peggy with a new do:

The new season four photo that I saw on USA Today:

What do you think of this season four Peggy photo? She looks much more business-like, older and more sophisticated than in season one.

What to Read Into the 'Mad Men' Season 4 Poster

Entertainment Weekly's Michael Ausiello got a sneak peek of the promotional poster for the fourth season of Mad Men.

Dapper Don’s back in a downtown high rise, not in a hotel room where we last saw the upstart Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce based. The glass walled room is empty but for a black telephone lying on the white floor. He’s smoking a cigarette and is staring out at the city, not looking altogether comfortable.

Sure, it looks like he's got a new, fresh, clean start, however Don's post-divorce life can't really be clean given that he and Betty have three kids to raise together and that his real name's not Don Draper. I really hope he doesn't become an absentee father in his attempt to start over, if nothing else, Don has always seemed as though he intensely loved his kids.

What do you get from this poster?

Image credit: AMC vis Entertainment Weekly.

'Mad Men' Season 4 Promos Highlight 'Fresh Starts'

It’s never too early to start thinking about the fourth season of Mad Men, which kicks off on Sunday, July 25.

Though series guru Matthew Weiner has been reluctant to reveal anything about what the fourth season will bring – season three concluded in December 1963 with Don toting luggage to a new apartment, Betty on a plane with Henry and baby Gene to get a quickie Reno divorce from Don, the formation of the new ad agency (Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce) based in a hotel suite, and Sally and Bobby Draper chillin’ in their Ossining home with Carla – these promos that are floating around emphasize the “fresh start” angle.





Meanwhile the promo below highlights Betty’s supposed “fresh start” with Henry. But Betty's still got Don, the father of her three children, to deal with, so how “fresh” can all of these starts be with these folks toting around some significant baggage, literally and figuratively?

Fan-Generated 'Mad Men' Video Makes Me Impatient for Season 4

The only thing that can attempt to fill the void left by Lost's departure (other than the quiet, moving incisiveness of Friday Night Lights): A new season of Mad Men. And Don Draper of course.

I found this fan-created video on the web site Collider via the Mad Men official web site and it's making me impatient for the new season to start next month.



FYI: The fourth season of Mad Men premieres on Sunday, July 25 at 10 p.m. on AMC.

Notes on Pop Culture: 'Mad Men' Season 4 Premiere (End in '12?), Catching Up on '24,' 'Parenthood' Renewed & More

Random notes on pop culture this week (also known as school vacation week in my house, when the three offspring wreak havoc with the schedule) . . .

Mad Men: I've already programmed Sunday, July 25 at 10 p.m. into my BlackBerry as the premiere date for the fourth season of Mad Men, one of my all-time favorite dramas which, according to a New York Post report, may end after its sixth season in 2012. Quelle horreur. (Currently, I'm in the midst of watching the season three DVD set and remembering how very grand it was. Just finished watching "Souvenir" the other night.)

24: The Spouse and I were dreadfully behind on 24. We watched three hours of it last night and we're still one hour behind. As for the twists and turns during the past couple of hours -- which have definitely improved I must add: I still hate Dana/Jenny and wish she'd been the one who'd been shot instead of Renee; I wonder if Chloe will still snarl as much now that he-who-needs-to-stand-up-straight has left the building and I'd like to know why it seems as though the Russians are almost always evil puppeteers on this show.

Parenthood: I wrote a column, published on Mommy Tracked this week, examining how the freshman drama Parenthood has spent some time developing a working mom character – a workaholic mom is jealous of her at-home husband whose company is preferred by their young daughter -- but not as much time on the at-home mom character. Until a recent episode. The teenaged daughter of the at-home mom looked down her nose at her mother for having left the workforce in order to raise children and ridiculed what her mother did as frivolous. Parenthood should have a whole bunch of time to delve really deeply into modern motherhood as represented by these two archetypes given that it was just got the green light for a second season.

TV Actors Who Make You Forget Their Old Big Roles: Speaking of Parenthood . . . my latest CliqueClack TV post addresses how when I watch Lauren Graham on Parenthood, I’m still thinking about Lorelai Gilmore from the Gilmore Girls and it's been bugging me. Yet when I see Peter Krause in Parenthood, his Nate Fisher character from Six Feet Under doesn’t come to mind. The post asks: Which currently appearing TV actors have been successful in getting viewers to forget their previous, famous roles when they take on a new one on a new TV show?

Two current success stories I mentioned: Matthew Fox, who was once Charlie Salinger on Party of Five and is now Jack Shephard on Lost and Kim Delaney who was once Det. Diane Russell on NYPD Blue and is now Claudia Joy Holden, the general's wife, on Army Wives.

Army Wives: While we're talking Army Wives, I'm one episode behind but wrote a column about the season premiere over on Mommy Tracked and how the writers have taken an Army wife mom of two -- who once lectured fellow Army wives that they’d better just get used to coming in second behind their husband’s military career and quit complaining -- getting sick of coming in second and demanding that her husband leave the armed services.

I’ve been reading: I’ve been horrifically behind in my reading for my book club. (The last book I read all the way through BEFORE my book club met was The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, which was awesome by the way. I highly recommend it.) I just finished reading Beneath a Marble Sky by John Shors, even though it was the book which the club discussed two weeks ago. (Once I got about 40 pages into it, I felt as though its momentum took off and made me keep reading it.) Now I’m reading my daughter’s Twilight: The Graphic Novel Volume 1 (greatly admire the illustrations) while I wait for my next book club book, Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks to arrive. I’m determined to read it in time for the book club.

Image credit: Carin Baer/AMC.