From the outside, soundstage No. 7 at Los Angeles's Culver Studios looks like an unremarkable airplane hangar. Inside? The fourth-season resurrection of the cult comedy Arrested Development rages in full eccentric swing as Cinco de Quatro — a fictional holiday meant to upstage the May 5 Mexican fiesta — is being celebrated noisily.
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Grab your fedora and pour yourself an Old Fashioned — Mad Men is back.
After weeks of speculation over the meaning of teaser trailers and (possibly) Easter egg-filled posters, the AMC drama launches its sixth — and likely penultimate — season with a two-hour premiere (Sunday, 9/8c). Season 5 ended with Don (Jon Hamm) giving in to the acting desires of his new bride Megan (Jessica Paré) and helping her get a part in one of the agency's commercials. As Don literally and figuratively left Megan behind at the soundstage to seek solace in a whiskey glass, he was approached by a woman at the bar who asked, "Are you alone?"
Exclusive Mad Men Season 6 trailer: "The next thing will be better"
While we've pondered Don's response to that query in the intervening months, we've also crafted a few more burning questions about what might be ahead for the men and women of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce (and Peggy!) this season. After the jump, creator Matthew Weiner and the cast give us their best answers...read more
It's only natural for AMC's Mad Men to be consumed with thoughts of mortality as it heads further into the turbulent late '60s in its sixth and reportedly next-to-last season of existence. A year ago, the central set piece in the premiere was a surprise birthday party. This time, it's a similarly eventful wake. And that's not the only way in which Sunday's two-hour opener (9/8c), written by series creator Matthew Weiner, drives the death-comes-to-us-all theme home with such sledgehammer relentlessness and obviousness that for the first time, I began to think maybe it is time for this beautifully crafted series to start thinking about giving up the ghost. There's no denying the importance of a show that manages to win four well-deserved best-drama Emmys in its first four times at bat — I didn't hesitate to include Mad Men among the Top 10 in a recent "60 Greatest Dramas of All Time" package in TV Guide Magazine. But does it have to be this self-important?
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