One of the most significant challenges of the film is to make us feel as if we're seeing this lifestyle with a fresh eye. The film does a terrific job of putting us in the era and making us feel like we're actually there.

I knew we could never be so cocky to think we'd actually figured out Matthew Weiner's next move, but every time (every time!) he manages to shock us, and thank God for that.

It's the penultimate episode of the season, SCDP is desperate, and Don is making moves. We've come a long way since the beginning of the season, where Don struggled with his own identity, and now SCDP is struggling with theirs.

Mad Men starts to wrap up in the third to last episode with this week's "Chinese Wall." Drowning in the loss of Lucky Strike, the partners at SCDP scramble to try and build a lifeboat.

Last night's Mad Men episode, "The Beautiful Girls," centers around Faye, Sally, Miss Blankenship, Peggy and Joan -- all in different stages of life, dealing with their own roles as women as well as their roles with the men that rely on them.

The quality of Don's voiceover gives the episode a different dear-diary kind of feel. Instead of watching him experience subtle and intense emotion, he's actually telling us what he's thinking, taking control of the narrative.

Wow! This week's episode of Mad Men was truly superb, the best this season--perhaps the best of any season. On the night of the historic Liston-Ali fight, Don and Peggy hang back in the office and do some sparring of their own.

If you were fan of Russell Brand's rock star character Aldous Snow in 2008's Forgetting Sarah Marshall, then brace yourself for a hysterical spin-off with Get Him to the Greek.

Five major plot developments in this episode -- named for the culmination of Betty Draper's pregnancy -- drive the action forward as we enter the middle of the season.

Season 3's third episode, named for a stunning Roger Sterling musical interlude, is as much about tone as advancement of the plot. And a surprisingly musical tone at that.

A satisfactory if not scintillating opener for the third season of Mad Men. The show captures the air of uncertainty that grips today's U.S. economy, and hints at major culture clash ahead.

There are a number of ways to view Mad Men. For my own part, I can take it as a period piece, a sort of time capsule of the early '60s, at once relatively close yet far enough away to be intriguing for its unfamiliarity.