It’s that time of year again to head back to the 1960s — the late ’60s, to be specific — as AMC has announced the long-awaited return date for Mad Men. Season 6 will premiere on Sunday, April 7, with a two-hour opener from 9-11pm. A week later, the show resumes its regular timeslot at 10pm.
Show creator and executive producer Matthew Weiner said in a press release, “To be able to continue exploring the stories of these characters for a sixth season is an amazing opportunity. We love mining this world and look forward to bringing the audience stories that we hope will continue to both surprise and entertain them.”
The EP talked with EW to tease fans about what all we can expect from the premiere, if the season 5 cliffhanger will be resolved and how this year’s storylines impact the overall series.
On the premiere: “If you like the show, there’s a good chance you’ll like the premiere … It is different than last year’s in a sense that it was my idea and I was just trying to give bang for a buck to an audience that I didn’t want to lose because we’d been away for so long.” He explains that the new season is structured as if it were a film: “It is its own story and hopefully it foreshadows the rest of the season … You know what happened at the end of last season before you see the episode. The whole season is in reference to last season.”
Season 5 left on a cliffhanger where an opening arose for infidelity to possibly return to Don Draper’s life. How will that resolve itself when the show returns? “What do you know about Don?” Weiner ponders. “He spent a season trying to have a domestic situation that is more familiar to most of us than his previous ones. He was in the glow of that marriage. … A lot of last season was told from the outside of Don, seeing him try to act like the person who was in that relationship. And there was supposed to be something about that last moment of [the finale] where Don turns to the camera where you are back on the inside with him and I can say that it is an internal story this season. It’s what I’m interested in this point.”
The conclusion of Mad Men may be in sight, as Weiner has stated in the past his desire to see the show reach its end with season 7. Knowing that helped to partly shape season 6. As the EP explains, “My thinking did change, and I was really starting to think in terms of the last 26 episodes together. … I can feel the end coming. I also felt like I’m not going to do 13 episodes of set-up; it should set itself up as it goes, as it always does. We also realized we had a really good story for Don that may change him irrevocably, but that might be part of the story also … The season is about Don, and I made a commitment to tell a full story, no matter what the consequences are.” He remains very tight-lipped on specific storylines, while doing an excellent job of keeping us intrigued for what’s to come with Don Draper and everyone else at Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce.
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(Image courtesy of AMC)
Staff Writer, BuddyTV
Jeff Dodge, a graduate of Western Washington University, has been a TV news editor for many years and has had the chance to interview multiple reality show stars, including Randy Jackson, Nick Cannon, Heidi Klum, Mel B and John Cena.
