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1. “Do you want the door open or closed?” “Open.”

2. Mad Men is my favorite show ever. I’ll miss it. The finale sucked, yet that’s nothing to get exercised about — that’s what finales do. Series finales always suck, and everyone knows it, but TV shows still feel obliged to keep attempting them. The idea that a show needs a finale is just one of those daffy ideas America took to heart in the 2000s, like MySpace, the Zune, the Audrina/Justin Bobby romance or the concept of Paula Abdul judging a singing contest.

Scp faces yet more changes in the latest, excellent episode of Mad Men, Time & Life...

This review contains spoilers.

7.11 Time & Life

His ex-lover. His marriage. His apartment. And now his firm. These concluding instalments of Mad Men are stripping Don Draper like a postulant. He’s being prepped to go, unshod and shorn, towards some kind of reckoning.

There was an inescapable sense of the endtimes to Time & Life—a suitably momentous title for an episode that blasted Mad Men’s central premise to pieces. Without Scp, this workplace drama no longer has a workplace. Don’s not the only one being dismantled in time for the ultimate episode, “everything must go”, as Roger drily observed.

Having the countdown in our minds (is it really three more episodes? Only three?) turns Mad Men’s audience into members of our own Armageddon cult. We’ve had a peek ahead at the...

A review of tonight's "Mad Men" coming up just as soon as I get you a map to the powder room... "I had a plan, which was no plans!" -Richard Early in "The Forecast," Don gets into an argument with his realtor Melanie, who can't be bothered to conceal her disgust with her client. As they study the barren living room tableau created by Marie Calvet's thievery, Don insists that it's a selling point, because potential buyers can more easily imagine their own furniture in the space. Melanie dismissively wonders if he's ever sold an apartment, and in a later conversation suggests, "this place reeks of failure." Don again shrugs off her contempt and says, "I have a good feeling about things." In a way, Don is proven right, since Melanie winds up selling the place at the asking price. But that empty apartment — and Don's reaction to realizing...

The article below contains spoilers for "For Immediate Release," the May 5, 2013 episode of "Mad Men." There were so many choice lines in "For Immediate Release" that it's hard to pick a favorite. There were Marie Calvet's (Julia Ormond) barely disguised French-language insults aimed at the woman with whom they were sharing a table ("Do you want me to break that bottle over her head?") and Bert's (Robert Morse) requests for a celebratory brandy or "spirits of elderflower," neither of which Pete (Vincent Kartheiser) had. There was Ken's (Aaron Staton) description of running into someone you know in a compromising place as "mutually assured destruction" ("It's why I don't worry about the bomb") and Jim Cutler (Harry Hamlin) saying of the plan to merge his agency with Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce that "I want to make this clear -- unless this works, I'm against it." There was Joan spitting at...

Julia Ormond made a strong impression as Marie Calvet, the flirty, dissatisfied Québécois mother-in-law Don Draper (Jon Hamm) when he married Megan (Jessica Paré) in the last season of "Mad Men." Now the actress is due for a return to the small screen in "Witches of East End," a new Lifetime series that's just been given a 10-episode order. Ormond will star in the series as Joanna Beauchamp, who lives in the Long Island seaside town of East Haven with her two grown daughters, Freya (Channing Tatum spouse Jenna Dewan-Tatum) and Rachel Boston ("In Plain Sight"). Freya's engagement to a wealthy newcomers forces Joanna to admit to her children that they come from a line of immortal witches, one that includes her sister Wendy ("Twin Peaks" star Mädchen Amick). The show, which is based on Melissa de la Cruz's novel of the same name, is due to launch this year.

Lifetime just put in a ten-episode order for Witches of East End, a supernatural drama featuring Julia "Marie Calvet, Megan Draper's Mom on Mad Men" Ormond and Jenna "Wife of Channing Tatum" Dewan-Tatum. The series will detail a mother and her two adult daughters, "both of whom unknowingly are their family’s next generation of witches, who lead seemingly quiet, uneventful modern day lives in Long Island’s secluded seaside town of East Haven." And here, for the road, is a photo from Hocus Pocus.

Nathaniel:  Hi Joanna and Jose! Welcome back. We'll call this Part One and it will be truly perverse if there isn't a part two since there was so very much gownage last night.

Joanna:  So happy to be back! Like so many things we saw last night, my excitement runneth over.

Nathaniel:  There are these precious few windows of time, see, and we're all online so we cover what we can. Speaking of windows of time... Mad Men's Emmy time passeth over. 0 for 17. So let's start with the Mad Women because they're never 0 for 17 in Nathaniel's World.

Megan Draper, Joan Holloway Harris, Marie Calvet, Peggy Olson, Betty Draper Francis

Joanna:  I feel like I just saw Jessica Pare's dress on someone else.  Am I crazy?

Nathaniel: Jose will know.

 Jose:  Maybe on her. She's been doing a lot of Jason Wu lately. But also, this is a very favored shape for red carpets,...

Well if you hadn't really heard of Homeland prior to this weekend, you probably have by now. The Showtime series pulled off a major upset at the 64th Annual Emmy Awards last night, winning a large chunk of the major awards in the Drama category over favourites like Mad Men, Breaking Bad, Boardwalk Empire and Game of Thrones. Claire Danes and Damian Lewis both took home awards for Lead Actress and Actor in a Drama Series, while the show also broke Mad Men's four-year win streak for Outstanding Drama Series. Elsewhere, Aaron Paul won his second Emmy for his supporting performance as Jesse Pinkman on Breaking Bad, while Julia Louis-Dreyfus won Best Lead Actress in a Comedy for Veep. Modern Family still took the Outstanding Comedy Series, however, while the HBO movie Game Change took the Outstanding Mini-Series or TV Movie. Kevin Costner did manage to pick up some...

The Emmys are approaching fast, and before you start clamoring for Bryan Cranston or Lena Dunham to win big, maybe you should take time to inspect the less publicized nominees. There are some exciting talents in minor categories this year, and if you're as geeky about award shows as I am, you'll be clapping for some of these potential winners as you scroll over their pictures. (How you'll clap and scroll simultaneously is beyond me.)

Here are seven awesome nominees you should learn to adore before the big ceremony on September 23.

1. Judy Davis in Page Eight

Hell yes. Judy Davis has kicked our asses several times in her career, starting with My Brilliant Career and through A Passage to India, Barton Fink, Husbands and Wives, the awesome and underrated Impromptu, and in her Emmy-winning turn as Judy Garland in the TV movie Me and My Shadows. A nomination for Judy Davis...

"You only live twice or so it seems, one for yourself and one for your dreams."

This James Bond theme song closes the season, bringing back Don Draper's double life in a satisfying, if not exciting, finale. Nothing crazy happened, but in the last two weeks Peggy quit, Joan prostituted herself and Lane committed suicide so it was nice to slow down to catch up. "The Phantom" takes on personal ghosts to conclude a season filled with altered realities, dream murders and acid trips. Last week there was death and this week it's Easter and it's time for resurrection. Marie Calvet tells Megan, "You're chasing a phantom," and this episode is haunted by phantoms of both the characters and the series, exposing the existence of everyone's double life: one for yourself and one for your dreams. They're all chasing a phantom of sorts: Megan is chasing her acting career, Don...

"Not every little girl gets to do what they want. The world could not support that many ballerinas."             --Marie Calvet (Julia Ormond) Season five of "Mad Men" came to an end last night not with a bang or a whimper -- it was more of an exhausted sigh, the kind that escapes you when you look at yourself in the mirror and can only see what time is doing to the face you used to have. It's been an even more melancholy than usual arc this year for the show, which saved for its late episodes the one-two-three punch of Joan (Christina Hendricks) being rented out like a call girl for the betterment of Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, Peggy (Elisabeth Moss) finally leaving for greener pastures and Lane (Jared Harris) making a permanent exit by hanging himself at the office. All that drama in its rearview, the show chose...

Somewhere, Conrad Hilton is saying he always thought Don Draper should listen to his wife. He always wanted the Moon, that ultimate symbol of Space Age striving in the '60s, from Don, and he didn't get it, which is why he dumped him at the end of Season 3. But Megan's brainstorm, which merely saves the day with Heinz, all primed to fire the agency after Peggy Olson's gaffes, finally delivers it. For Heinz, though, not Hilton.

"There's something happening here / What it is ain't exactly clear ..."

As always, there be some spoilers ahead. Incidentally, you can see all my Mad Men pieces, going back to 2009, here in The Mad Men File.

Since Don and Megan actually seem to talk -- she knows he is Dick Whitman and isn't thrown in the least by it -- she probably knows about the unrealized Hilton Moon shot ad that eliminated Don's most important client by far.

The episode title, "At The Codfish Ball," is a Shirley Temple song from the 1936 movie Captain January (video below) about all the different fish "from the herring to the whale" going down to a jamboree, at the bottom of the sea. In their own jamboree, old and new characters come together for multiple gatherings of fish: Megan cooks Dover sole, they eat fish at the Heinz dinner, Stan finished the shrimp in the office, and Sally picks at her fish at the American Cancer Society dinner aka the Codfish Ball. Unlike the intimacy of the past few, this episode zooms out to show us a wider view, bringing in a great crew: my favorite characters Glen and Mona, Peggy's mother (who's great I just like her less), and Megan's communist and sexpot French parents Dr. Emile and Marie Calvet. Let's party.

Megan's parents and Don's kids are staying at the Draper lovenest.

The episode title, "At The Codfish Ball," is a Shirley Temple song from the 1936 movie Captain January (video below) about all the different fish "from the herring to the whale" going down to a jamboree, at the bottom of the sea. In their own jamboree, old and new characters come together for multiple gatherings of fish: Megan cooks Dover sole, they eat fish at the Heinz dinner, Stan finished the shrimp in the office, and Sally picks at her fish at the American Cancer Society dinner aka the Codfish Ball. Unlike the intimacy of the past few, this episode zooms out to show us a wider view, bringing in a great crew: my favorite characters Glen and Mona, Peggy's mother (who's great I just like her less), and Megan's communist and sexpot French parents Dr. Emile and Marie Calvet. Let's party.

Megan's parents and Don's kids are staying at the Draper lovenest.

Taken from a Shirley Temple/Buddy Ebsen song and dance number featured in 1936's Captain January, I took this week's "At the Codfish Ball" as not so much a nod to the actual movie but more an allusion to the drama behind the scenes. After the film's release, critic and novelist Graham Greene wrote a scathing review of Temple, suggesting that her popularity stemmed from her pedophilic appeal.

Drawing on Temple's past roles (especially Charles Lamont's 1932-33 satirical series Baby Berlesks where a 3-year-old Temple plays sexualized characters under the guise of "It's cute to use toddlers to make fun of adult-stars") he found Captain January "a little depraved," saying she had "an oddly precocious body as voluptuous in grey flannel trousers as Miss Dietrich's." Temple was only eight when Greene made these statements, and in 1938 he found himself embroiled in a lawsuit with Fox and the Temple family...

Taken from a Shirley Temple/Buddy Ebsen song and dance number featured in 1936's Captain January, I took this week's "At the Codfish Ball" as not so much a nod to the actual movie but more an allusion to the drama behind the scenes. After the film's release, critic and novelist Graham Greene wrote a scathing review of Temple, suggesting that her popularity stemmed from her pedophilic appeal.

Drawing on Temple's past roles (especially Charles Lamont's 1932-33 satirical series Baby Berlesks where a 3-year-old Temple plays sexualized characters under the guise of "It's cute to use toddlers to make fun of adult-stars") he found Captain January "a little depraved," saying she had "an oddly precocious body as voluptuous in grey flannel trousers as Miss Dietrich's." Temple was only eight when Greene made these statements, and in 1938 he found himself embroiled in a lawsuit with Fox and the Temple family...