How do you know when campaign season is over? Maybe when the boldest idea of the week comes from film and TV critic Marshall Fine, who argues today for the termination of TV series after one year. Even the hits! (Especially the hits, in fact.) And we might even sign on — with a few exceptions.Fine's logic is exactly that: literal and emotionally detached from the enduringly riveting qualities of shows like Mad Men, 30 Rock, The Simpsons, Grey's Anatomy and a handful of others. But wouldn't the outrage following those and other great programs' predetermined self-destruction after 12 or so episodes would be preferable to their having eventually squandered their legacies on so-called stunt-casting and/or firing controversies? Doesn't going out gracefully a la Rome or The Wire allow for a better fan memory (and presuppose a bump in DVD sales)? Can't we avoid syndication hell with Friends and Two-and-a-Half Men? Yes, yes, and yes, writes Fine, who points to the UK as an example of doing things right:

Last night's Treehouse of Horror episode of The Simpsons featured a direct homage to Mad Men—the familiar strings accompanying a silhouette of Homer tumbling down the side of a building on whatever Springfield's answer to Madison Avenue is.(Probably the place that came up with this ingenious Kwik-E-Mart campaign, replete with a real live Comic Book Guy!) The Halloween episode scored the highest ratings in five years for the animated series. Unfortunately, the Mad Men parodying ended at the title sequence; as much as we wanted to hear Homer say, "It’s not called a wheel, it’s called a donut. Round and a round, and sprinkly delicious. Arhghghllll....dooonuttttt. To a place where we know we are loved," instead we got Homer on a bizarre celebrity killing spree that cost us Prince and George Clooney.

Oh, swoon. Just when we thought we couldn't like him any more, Mad Men star Jon Hamm has to go and do a guest-spot on funniest show ever 30 Rock. As a potential love interest for Liz! So that's pretty great. He ably hosted Saturday Night Live last weekend, so we're confident he'll bring the funny. Is this guy on track to be the next George Clooney or what? He's charming and amiable but stern at times, has rugged good looks, and a relaxed but assured masculinity. He's got it all! Or does he... I mean, he's still living pretty modestly. The first season of Mad Men, given that it's an AMC show, probably didn't pay much and his second season contract most likely didn't give him a huge raise. Last we checked, he was living in Los Feliz and driving a leased Audi. So he's not quite tooling around his own Clooney Manor on Lake Como yet. Nor is Mad Men an enormous success or the Hamm name a household one. Yet. Actually he sort of reminds us of those young lads from Good Will Hunting who stood, some 11 years ago, poised to conquer the world. One went one way, the other another. And that has made all the difference. Mr. Hamm is, yes, about ten years older now than Matt Damon and Ben Affleck were when they broke out, but he's arguably at the same career crossroads. So now does he go the Affleck route and try to make his movie star name in cheesy blockbusters and just become a Big Famous Person? Or does he tread more stealthily, choosing diverse and difficult actor parts with fancy directors, like Damon did with The Talented Mr. Ripley and All The Pretty Horses. We know how all that turned out, so hopefully Hamm will take Damon route and do the art house pictures and become big ticket popcorn star. Just like Mr. Clooney, really, who zipped his way through good schlock (the Ocean's movies) and bad schlock (Batman & Robin) before he could really exercise some muscle and get his own creative pet projects made. Clooney has, really, the perfect acting career—a mixture of dark, substantive work and fun lighter fare—and Damon looks to be following ably in his footsteps. We hope that Hamm can do the same. Right now he's got both an indie and a big blockbustery thing in the can, so... two roads diverge.

It looks like Lionsgate will find a way to come to terms with Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner on a third season of Mad Men. That's good news for fans of the show, 49 percent of which — we learned in the solid ratings for Sunday's finale, perhaps due to Jon Hamm's SNL appearance the night before — make over $100,000. That so many rich viewers aged 25-54 watched each week is certainly a plus for advertisers, but the secret to the show's continued success may be the expanded audience it received off . Click to find out just why lower income viewers aren't tuning into Mad Men with greater frequency.The last show Weiner worked for was The Sopranos, unique in its ability to hit both demographics. Set in New Jersey as opposed to the glitzy Manhattan of Mad Men, it was hardly a glowing portrait of the underclass, but it featured a more accessible, middle class fantasy for those without means. Carmelo Soprano aspired to what being rich is for lower class folks: shiny SUVs, tacky furniture and owning your own home in a leafy burb. It's a vision deeply different from Mad Men's slice of 1960s Manhattan, a sexy playground that's only really available to those who are already wealthy.

The Future of Weiner. A rumor that Lionsgate is approaching various agencies in search of a Mad Men showrunner to replace a too-rich-for-their-blood Matthew Weiner was shot down by an insider, who told Defamer the negotiations had just begun, and that while he asked high, they were absolutely "not looking to replace him. He IS the show." Fret not, Mad Men fans still in mourning over the end of Season 2 and sweating the fate of Season 3: the studio is confident the deal will close before Christmas. (And without the celebrity dancing competition Jon Hamm promised in his SNL monologue.)

Last's night's Mad Men season finale took place during the Cuban Missile Crisis, but the real action was happening to the AMC series' gorgeous and successful women. While the men of Mad Men cower in their apartments, bang tables in anger and hide under desks, the women have taken center stage to become the show's centerpiece. Yes, Mad Men has stopped living up to its title, and might deserve a new one for its third season.For show creator Matthew Weiner, nothing screams feminism like the raging hormones of a woman with child. He describes how the pregnancy of Betty Draper (January Jones) affects the character's growth:

For Mad Men's slender but loyal viewership, SNL's Don Draper's Guide to Picking Up Women sketch peeled back the hard, handsome mystery of the adultering marketing genius underneath. On tonight's season finale, Don's silent journey into the abyss best get some resolution. And if you haven't sampled the best show on television before, you now have another reason to.For the past two seasons, Jon Hamm's character has been on a journey to find himself, drinking profusely and cheating on his wife to soothe his aching psyche and add to his bone list. With a massive lack of onscreen dialogue in this season's L.A. Story arc, Don Draper has said less and done more than any character on TV, as SNL so aptly reminded us: While we remain fascinated by every single aspect of Don's life, audiences haven't been as kind to the silent giant of Sterling Cooper. Despite being the best show on television, Mad Men's ratings haven't appreciably improved: it attracts about 1.5 million viewers weekly compared to CSI's 19 million plus audience. Does Matthew Weiner's masterpiece have to be like The Wire where the larger viewing public doesn't really get it until the show is in its last throes? The preview video for tonight's finale of Mad Men joins a discussion between the junior copywriters of Sterling Cooper about what exactly their sexaholic mastermind boss is doing in Los Angeles. One speculates he's landing a big fish, another says he's done this before. Let's just be sure to wrap it up one way or another, Weiner. Click to view

In its review of Elle-focused reality show Stylista, the Times finds plenty to like, surprisingly. It seems hippie editor Anne Slowey does a surprisingly convincing impersonation of Meryl Streep imitating Miranda Priestly standing in for mean old Anna Wintour of Vogue. (So much for those embarrassing preview clips from a few months ago.) The catfighting is inspired and "novel." And yet that's not what will hook you on the show. You'll watch because you are aching to pretend, for an hour each Wednesday, that the brutal hierarchy of yesteryear lent work an elegant simplicity. Writes the Times' Gina Bellafante:

Season two of everyone's favorite misogyny-fest, Mad Men, ends next week. But good news! AMC just ordered a third. In the meantime, you can't have a TV drama about a bunch of women-hating he-men without women for them to hate. And what are those women like? Video intern Marian Lorraine has compiled the ladies at their super retro bitchiest. Click through for awesomeness!

Well now, we got our hands on a survey of people who watch Mad Men, the critically acclaimed show that consists of sex, sexism, cigarettes, booze, boozy sex, racism, and a bit of advertising. And guess what? The audience appears to be made up of off-the-charts alcoholics. Forty-seven times the normal rate of hard Irish Whiskey drinkers, for example. But there's one stunning twist in all this here data!

It is already October 15th! How did that happen? I guess you could say that the Earth rotated around the sun a specific number of times and that days winnowed into nights which bled into days and so on and so on in the circle game. I think that's it. So, how have we been spending these ever-marching autumn hours? Watching TV, of course! Lots and lots of TV. Some has been good (Mad Men, The Daily Show), some has been bad (90210), and some has just been puzzling (Two and a Half Men?). So as we approach the ever-important November Sweeps Week—when networks set their ad rates based on inflated, extraordinary episodes that don't actually reflect typical week-in, week-out quality—let's take a second to give a quarter term report card. How has television been faring, you know, quality-wise (because we already know that ratings are in the toilet)? We'll analyze after the jump.

Hey, fey Park Slope stay-at-home dad who's taking care of the kids and cooking dinner because you've been freed from the yoke of oppressive gender roles: your wife wants to fuck a real man! A swarthy, hard-drinking, two-timing, emotionally distant sex hound who's not going to stop in the middle of things and think about whether he packed the kids' lunches properly. Sorry, Park Slope dad; your wife thinks you're a pussy. And you know who else thinks you're a pussy? The New York Observer. (Wow, that's bad!). They got in touch directly with your womenfolk, and they're all fantasizing about Don Draper, the heroic asshole star of Mad Men:

The Gossip Girl kids have gotten political. Two of them at least, Penn Badgley who plays Dan and his off-screen ladylove Blake Lively, who plays his on-screen ladylove Serena. They're appearing in a MoveOn.org anti-McCain ad in which regular kids—including these two soap stars at that Hannah girl from that American Teenager documentary—condescend to their McCain-voting parents as if they were about to drink or take doobies. Har har. So Gossip Girl is a bit liberal, but it's not the only politicized show on the air. No indeed there are others, subtly (or not so) spouting rhetoric from both sides of the aisle. Our Photoshop expert Steve Dressler has created a simple chart that we'll explain after the jump.

Click to viewBoomp3.com The creative and sales departments of popular fictitious advertising agency Sterling Cooper hit the back 9 for a lil’ company retreat on Monday afternoon. The typically Mad Men became a group of Mellow Men despite going over—very over—par on their outing. The usually dapper Don Draper enjoyed a relaxed look. Draper said, “No one bothered us. No one asked me for advice or to come home with them. It was refreshing.” [Photo Credit: Getty Images] *A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

AMC's Mad Men, about Madison Avenue ad execs in the early 1960's, is meticulous in its period detailing—just the right mod sofa is moored in every living room, the ladies could have purchased their outfits on 5th Avenue just that afternoon, even the food is done retro (heavy, simple, ew). So it's sort of hilarious to see a dedicated fan of the show nitpick over its tiny details, finding cracks in its carefully put together 1960's veneer. Mark Simonson has done just that, down to the aging of a plastic shield on a typewriter and the fonts on various briefly-shown adds. Some examples of Simonson's delightfully obsessed Madness lie after the jump. "Gill Kayo did exist at the time, but wasn’t in style yet and feels out of place on this church flyer. Gotham (2002) is just wrong. The blown up vintage clip art seems odd here, too. The whole layout has a Kinko’s feel to it."

No One Escapes the Emmys Unscathed: You might think that after becoming the first basic cable show to win the Emmy for Best Drama, AMC's Mad Men would receive a bump in ratings from first-timer curious to see what all the fuss is about. You would be wrong: the series fell from 1.9 million viewers to 1.6 million for its first episode since the awards ceremony. In the words of defiant Emmy figurehead Josh Groban, "Really? Really?!" [THR]

Click to viewBoomp3.com Famed offspring Rumer Willis was spotted in ultra luxurious Bev Hills over the weekend sporting new crimson colored locks. When asked why she made the decision to embrace her inner big red, Willis explained it was for a string of upcoming Halloween parties. Wilis said, “This season, I’m going to go as two different people —Joan from Mad Men and Pam from The Office— and I didn’t want to wear a wig. So, I just dyed my hair and now I’ll alternate between the outfits from party to party.” Willis felt that she would go with the Pam costume when attending spooky shindigs associated with her family and the more vivacious Joan Holloway costume at other events. Willis added, “I assume that if I was dressed like Joan at my dad’s party, a lot of his friends would hit on me and I’m not sure if I’m fully comfortable with that just yet.” Also before jetting away, Willis practiced her Facebook & MySpace profile photo in the rearview mirror. [Photo Credit: X17] *A Call To The Bullpen is a work of fiction. Although the pictures we use are most certainly real, Defamer does not purport that any of the incidents or quotations you see in this piece actually happened. Lighten up, people ... it's a joke.

Adding some actual potency to Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and president Sue Decker's pitch to Madison Avenue this morning: Jon Hamm, star of AMC's weekly ode to the world of 1960's ad guys, Mad Men. Yang and Decker were likely hoping Hamm's shine would rub off on them, just by having him in the room this morning to deliver lines like "what my friend Jerry Yang is about to share with you will rock the advertising world in the same way that radio and television did way back when."Likening APT (née AMP, née Project Apex, before its name was "awesomeized"), Yahoo's too-little-too-late ad platform, to the scotch-soaked, cigarette hazy halcyon days that Hamm's presence would evoke can only remind those potential ad buyers of how the business really isn't anymore. Like Yahoo's golden era, it, too, has passed, no matter how many smoke rings management attempts to wreath their current missteps in. As Don Draper said in his most famous pitch, clipped above: "Nostalgia literally means the pain from an old wound."

The '60th Anniversary' Emmy Awards, recognizing "excellence" in television, paraded themselves around last night, vindicating and embarrassing the whole affair in equal measure. Some little-watched and much-deserving programs won top glittery trophies (30 Rock, Mad Men) while sycophancy, silly time wasting tedium, and suspicious whiffs of censorship soured the perfumed air. After the jump we'll give you some of the best and worst Emmy moments, as we saw them, for those of you (and I suspect that was most of you) who didn't watch any of the lurching proceedings. THE BEST

Sunday greetings from Defamer HQ, where television's! Biggest! Night! has us shaking off our hangovers for live coverage of the 60th annual Emmy Awards. That's right — we're doing this live, bypassing that silly West Coast tape delay for the straight dirt as it happens on the red carpet, inside the Nokia Theater and wherever else history and fools are being made on this historic evening. You know the subplots to watch for over the long night ahead, so read along and join the party. And heads up: Spoilers (and a few advance clips) follow for anyone who can't bear to know Heidi Klum's hosting benchmarks or how much ass Mad Men is kicking before watching for themselves in primetime. That said, we've already filled you in this year's heroes in comedy and drama; what more is there to know? After the jump, join us on the express elevator into the heart of Emmy hell!10:56 We've never been happier to see Tom Selleck; he's presenting Outstanding Drama to... MAD MEN. Our thoughts exactly! Not a bad way to go out, and not a minute too soon — we're Emmyed out, we think. Thanks for joining us — where's the bar? 10:54 Mary Tyler Moore and Betty White present 30 ROCK with the Outstanding Comedy Emmy. 10:45 Kimmel cuts to commercial before revealing the Best Reality Host award-winner. Clever! We'll take advantage of it: The Yankees are up 5-3 in the sixth inning of the final game at Yankee Stadium. And ... they're back, and the world seems a little lesser place knowing JEFF PROBST is an Emmy winner. 10:37 Look what Rickles hath wrought: Now Kiefer's not even allowed to walk to the podium out of a commercial break; he just materializes Kieferishly to present Best Actor in a drama... who is... BRYAN CRANSTON for Breaking Bad? What? We'll have to come back to this; Craig Ferguson and Brooke Shields are sprinting on to present Best Actress in a comedy... who is... TINA FEY for 30 Rock. Bryan Cranston. Huh. 10:32 This In Memoriam montage is kind of bracing. Charlton Heston, Isaac Hayes, Sydney Pollack... and George Carlin apparently died twice. 10:26 Candice Bergen hands off Best actor in a comedy to ALEC BALDWIN for 30 Rock. Gahhhh! We can't keep up! America Ferrara and Vanessa Williams come out to present Best Actress in a drama... who is... GLENN CLOSE for Damages. 10:23 Glenn Close is just so... classy. She should be hosting! Anyway, she presents Best Actor in a movie or miniseries... who is... PAUL GIAMATTI for John Adams. 10:15 Greg Yaitanes just won an Emmy for directing House. House has directors? Who knew? And Matt Weiner won the dramatic writing prize for Mad Man. Naturally. 10:09 Don Rickles encore! He wins best performance in a variety/music show, telling most of the same jokes he told in Mr. Warmth — the documentary/concert film he just won for. And the circle is complete. 10:01 John Adams wins Best Miniseries. Producer Tom Hanks gets to show off his Da Vinci sequel coiffure; it's good to see the Vatican hasn't gotten him yet. 9:59 Kathy Griffin joins Don Rickles to present, standing ovation ensues. Rickles is killing: "Let's read these funny lines they wrote for us! ... Hey folks, this crap got me no place, I'll tell you that right now." The show resumes, with The Amazing Race nabbing Best Reality Competition. Rickles cuts the producer off and drags him offstage. Sigh. More like this, please. 9:50 We need an intermission! Can we interest anybody in any air sex? 9:45 "This dried up prune has the experience we need!" Even Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart are on fumes presenting Best Director for a miniseries or movie... who is... JAY ROACH for Recount. He thanks his wife, ex-Bangle Susanna Hoffs, which promptly gets him thrown off stage. Best writing, meanwhile, goes to John Adams. 9:42 The Emmys has now regressed to CSI's changing of the guard: Laurence Fishburne picks up the keys from Bill Petersen while presenting Supporting Actor for miniseries or movie... who is... for Recount. 9:35 Christian Slater and Christina Applegate present Best Made for TV movie... which is... Recount. 9:31 That whole Piven host-bashing acceptance speech an hour ago got worse backstage, we hear: ""I thought we were being punk'd. [...] I was confused. [In the room] it was like in The Producers when they do Springtime for Hitler. There's a, 'What was actually happening right now?' There was a great line about Sarah Palin that landed. But it was confusing. From Lucille Ball on, television has been so entertaining. And this was a celebration of nothingness so it was confusing." 9:21 Lauren Conrad is presenting an Emmy. With David Boreanaz. On the bright side (as if it gets darker) TINA FEY comes out of it with the Outstanding Comedy Writing award for 30 Rock. 9:15 The most brutal part of this Laugh-In number is that it may very well have imploded its legacy among any viewers who hadn't seen it before. It's appallingly unfunny and beyond depressing. The whole thing leads into the Outstanding Comedy or Variety show... which is... THE DAILY SHOW. Suck it, Colbert. 9:07 Alec Baldwin fails to plug his book while presenting Lead Actress in a miniseries or movie... who is... LAURA LINNEY for John Adams. 9:03 After a start that had us tying a noose, we admit that Josh Groban's opening-theme lightning round is kind of weirdly riveting. He had us at South Park. 8:52 Giving Tommy Smothers a 40-years belated Emmy for writing on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, Steve Martin drops "perspicacious, multifarious and placatory" and about 90 percent of the viewing audience in a 10-second burst. Smothers himself loses the rest. But we're back now! 8:48 Jennifer Love-Hewitt and Hayden Panitierre present Outstanding Writing in a Comedy Program to... THE COLBERT REPORT. Shocker! Jon Stewart gets thanked but looks like he's caught on camera reaching for his flask. 8:43 Conan O'Brien: "I would have had better stuff tonight but Katherine Heigl wrote my material." Zing! Then he presents Supporting Actress in a drama ... who is... DIANNE WEIST. 8:36 Ricky Gervais busts Steve Carell's balls in the best bit of the night. Careful, Ricky — Ryan says they're enlarged! And for what it's worth, Louis Horivtz — yes, the Louis Horvitz — won the variety-show directing prize for this year's Oscars. 8:33 Wait — Jackée Harry won an Emmy? These montages are great. 8:26 The ladies of Desperate Housewives present Supporting Actor in a drama ... who is... ZELJKO IVANEK. We missed it, but more importantly: Did Eva Longoria know she'd only get literally six words in? She's a team player after all! 8:18 Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who is wearing a dress made of salmon scales, presents Supporting Actress in a comedy ... who is... JEAN SMART. 2 for 2. 8:11 Tina Fey and Amy Poehler present Supporting Actor in a comedy... who is... JEREMY PIVEN. Naturally he takes his bombed joke out on the hosts: "Thanks to the 11 of you who laughed. What If I just talked for 12 minutes. That would be the opening!" Really, Pivs, you can go the Heigl route any time now. PS: Defamer Emmy predictions are 1 for 1. 8:05 Jeff Probst: "We have absolutely nothing for you." And really, they don't. So who do they turn to? Who else: Bill Shatner. And we guarantee that was the first and last time he'll ever tear off a supermodel's clothes. 8:00 Are we the only ones who don't get the opening monta— OMGZ OPRAH!! 7:53 Aw! Christina Applegate is on hand, looking great and sounding great. That is all. 7:43 Kimmel's ABC special has an OK faux-interview with Salma Hayek, but the real action is back at the Twilight Zone of E!, where Giuliana Rancic points out that Bryan Cranston is the only actor to play both a crystal meth dealer and Frankie Muniz's father. 7:28 Lackluster as Tina Fey's Seacrest interlude was earlier, she's still got a highlight from the E! broadcast. Remember the timeshare Martin Scorsese pushed on her in that American Express spot a while back? Finally, the details! 7:19 Jeremy Piven finally showed up — no date(s) apparently, his Mom is "over it." Aren't. We. All. 7:15 Now here's some news: Eva Longoria and Tony Parker were held up in a bomb scare. Ever the professional, Seacrest segues effortlessly into Housewives' five-year plot jump. Did we mention this award is his to lose? 7:05 "We're joined by the cast of Entourage..." But where is the Piv? Picking up his date(s)? Developing... 6:51 Breaking! Britney Spears wanted to come back to How I Met Your Mother when Sarah Chalke's storyline was reintroduced. Not so fast, alas — the producers will have to get back to her about that. 6:47 Are Seacrest and Steve Carell bonding over enlarged balls? They are! Is it 8 yet? 6:43 More breaking development news! Marcia Cross confirms there will be no Melrose Place revival. 6:39 How the other half lives: On TV Guide Channel, Lisa Rinna has back-to-back interviews with Tony Shalhoub and Zeljko Ivanek intercut with arrivals footage of... Phylicia Rashad. 6:32 That Tracy Morgan interview was the most boring 90 seconds of his career. 6:22 Jenna Fischer looks great, and now she's saying there's no Office spin-off at all — i.e. "cannibalizing the granddady," as Seacrest says. Not that, either, Fischer says. 6:14 Emmy ParentWatch continues! Seacrest shoves aside a weak Kathy Griffin for Rainn Wilson, who brings up his own old man for a chat. After the troubling disclosure about some Wilson/Jason Reitman reunion called Bonzai Shadowhands ("I play a drunk, down-and-out ninja"), a more scintillating update reveals they're holding off a year for the Office spin-off. And three weddings this year. Huh. 6:07 Because the world needs another Sandra Oh interview like it needs another Fey/Palin comparison, Seacrest brought her parents in for the Q&A — Mr. and Mrs. Oh from Ottawa. Fun fact: Her mother is a scientist! 6:00 OMG!!!! Finally — Seacrest, Klum, Bergeron, Mandel, and Probst, all together at once on E! This truly is the impossible dream, and Probst is going tie-less. Slob. Kiss the Best Reality TV Host prize goodbye.