Fortunately, Woodstock is still a long ways off. And the Summer of Love is, too (along with San Francisco), though it's just over a year away in the Mad Men universe. But the rumblings of change -- in this case racial change and generational change -- are getting much louder.

We're about halfway through Season 4 and "The Suitcase" focuses on the show's most functional couple -- Peggy and Don. And of course when the episode...

Don, the ultimate charlatan, is imploding under his identity crisis. He's so drunk throughout most of the episode that he becomes unconscious of his actions.

Peggy steps out of her day job and into the beatnik nightlife, entering a world divorced from her pragmatism, where she doesn't have to fake virginity to win a man's attention.

Identity is still an overarching theme. Whose needs will you cater to -- yours or others'? And at what point do others' desires muddle with your own until you can no longer tell them apart?

Mad Men is, sadly, off the air till the summer. But it is definitely on a roll. Earlier in January, it won as best dramatic series at the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild, and the Producers Guild, among others.

What "Seven Twenty Three" is is Don Draper's Waterloo. Or I should say, Dick Whitman's Waterloo. That's the day in 1963 on which Don Draper/Dick Whitman gets lassoed.

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.

We learned more about the characters and the changes taking place in this pivotal year. And we tapped into very contemporary themes about corporate disarray and aging parents.

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.