When “Mad Men” finally returns in April after nearly a year from our television screens, creator Matthew Weiner told reporters at Saturday’s Television Critics Association press tour that it could be considered its own mini season.
The series will return with seven new episodes, the seventh Wiener asked for after AMC filled him in on their plan to split the season. Weiner said that they shot the series all at once, even though these episodes are arriving only now. There was an extra episode added to the run after Wiener found out about the split season.
“That’s when I asked for the extra episode,” he said. “I was like, ‘I don’t want to see six episodes. It’s not enough.’”
He also said that viewers should view this final season as having two starts and two finale episodes.
“Thematically, it’s one season,” he explained of the split season challenge. “But in terms of its airing, I will acknowledge the fact that there are two premieres and two finales, and it was an opportunity to advance the story in a different way.”
As far as this second finale, January Jones, who plays Betty, said that most of the cast members received the script without the last 10 pages (Jon Hamm, who plays lead Don, would later find out the full ending before everyone else).
“I was pleasantly surprised,” Christina Hendricks, who plays Joan, said of the finale. “I thought there was no way I could be happy because it’s ending … Then, I thought that it made sense. So, I was very, very pleased.”