TV Newsline: Mad Men get renewed, but it's not all rosy

Mad Men has officially been picked up for a fifth season, though for those you who have been following this story, it should come to no surprise that it comes with a few caveats.

First, the good news. The show has been renewed for not one, but two seasons, with the option for a third, which will most likely happen since AMC already has Weiner locked down for three years anyway. (Though cast salaries will have to be negotiated for that last season - the show's seventh.) And in an interview with a Mad Men fanblog, Weiner said that the fifth season will start in March 2012, and that if show received a seventh season, it would be the last.

Now, the bad news. Apart from the season premiere and finale's, the show's normal 47 minute run time will be reduced to 45 minutes, though apparently certain on-demand services will provide longer versions of these episodes. And though I don't know exactly what OD services these episodes will show on, I don't know if it will really be worth it just to have two more minutes of characters meaningfully staring at one other.

The other bit of bad news, as outlined by Alan Sepinwall, is that though product introduction will continue to occur at its normal frequency, there seems to be a demand for "more transparency," which, given how obvious some of the products have been in past episode - even if they have always been incorporate in the best way possible - who knows how that's going to work without it devolving into every Ford plug on White Collar.


That's all for now, but if anything else comes up (and given how batshit crazy this has all been, it's quite possible at this point), I'll be sure to write about it here on the blog.