TV Watch: "Mad Men" Season 7 preview -- Is the world ready for a mod Harry Crane? (Plus a bold prediction)

You've got your 3D glassses on, right?

Fashion-forward Harry Crane (Rich Sommers), from
the newly released Mad Men Season 7 cast photos

by Ken

I think I've mentioned that I planned to go back to the beginning and traverse Seasons 1 to 6 of Mad Men in anticipation of the debut of the seventh and final season on April 13. I'm now early in Season 3, and I can report one startling finding: Janie Bryant, who has become world-famous as the show's costume designer (and obviously one of the people most visibly responsible for its period look) turned into Katherine Jane Bryant in all the Season 2 credits, but reverted to Janie Bryant for Season 3.

Now just look what Katherine Jane has done with (to?) the ranking hipster of TV ad buys, Harry Crane. Are you going to tell me you wouldn't tune in to Season 7 just to see mod Harry? (Janie's work is exquisitely complemented by Harry's sleek hairdo, without which the look just wouldn't be . . . er, what it is.)

(Probably I'll write some other time about the experience of viewing the whole of the series in succession. For now, just one other quick impression: It's fascinating and a bit weird to be reminded how young Don and Betty's daughter Sally was way back when.)

I'm on record as a big fan of the boys and girls who crank out the AMC blog -- at least as regards my "AMC repertory." That repertory shrank by 50 percent when Breaking Bad aired its final episode, and seems likely to drop to zero when Mad Men completes this final season.

Right now, though, we're in that tricky period where the AMC blgogkids are trying to hype the looming Mad Men season without having much they're allowed to show or tell. So we're getting teasers, stuff like the official poster for the new season, and the official ice-cream flavor, and the official bird, and flower.

Today it was cast photos.

I assume that what the real Mad Men fans want is to know everything that happens in every episode, so that there's really no need to watch them. I don't have quite that much information, but seeing as how all the photos released, apart from the ones simply posed in front of that lovely backdrop (which you'll note looks better, or at least less distracting, when it's Christina Hendricks standing in front of it rather than, say, Vincent Kartheiser), depict scenes from an airport, I'm going to venture the bold prediction that sometime very soon, possibly as soon as April 13, a bunch of the Mad Men people will be flying someplace.

Remember, you heard it here at DWT TV Watch!

OKAY, IF YOU REALL WANT TO KNOW
MORE ABOUT THE UPCOMING SEASON --

Okay, if you really want to know more about the upcoming season, Mad Men mastermind Matthew Weiner talked to HuffPost's Maureen Ryan. Normally our Matt is fiercely cagey about giving anything significant away ahead of broadcast; even so, since I don't want to know anything significant in advance, I don't plan to read the piece until we're at least several episodes into the season. Of course by then I'm sure to have lost the link, but by then will it matter?

Arriving at the airport: Megan and Don Draper (Jessica Paré, Jon Hamm). I've tactfully omitted a Season 7 "portrait" that makes the lovely Megan look like a wicked witch.


Waiting to board: Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss) and Don

Waiting for the same flight? Naturally Roger Sterling (John Slattery) has a cigarette in hand -- but no drink?


Mad men and woman board the plane: Stan Rizzo (Jay R. Ferguson), Michael Ginsberg (Ben Feldman), Peggy, Harry, and Ken Cosgrove (Aaron Staton)


(SO FAR) NOT SEEN FLYING ANYWHERE

Yes, Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) is here.

So (whew!) is Joan Holloway Harris (Christina Hendricks).

Happy family? Don's ex, Betty (January Jones), with ever-enduring husband Henry Francis (Christopher Stanley) and -- my, how she's grown! -- Betty and Don's oldest, daughter Sally Draper (Kiernan Shipka)


IF YOU DON'T HAVE OTHER ACCESS
TO THE PREVIOUS SEASONS' EPISODES --

Remember that for the remaining time until the Season 7 premiere, you can watch full episodes from Season 6 on the AMC website.

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