Decadent drama ‘Mad Men’ beginning new season

Pour yourself a drink as stiff as Ed Sullivan, and feel free to start smoking at least a carton a day. Who cares if it's not yet breakfast?

While you're at it, be curt with the woman who'll soon make that breakfast -- as artery-paralyzing as possible, natch -- and crank up your overall level of misogyny to somewhere between the settings labeled "The Little Rascals' He-Man Woman Haters Club" and "Mel Gibson."

Not only will this get you back into the spirit of "Mad Men" (10 p.m. today, AMC), it should jolt your brain to attention after it has spent the past several weeks being coddled by delightfully frothy summer dramas or lowest common denominator reality shows.

As always, it's hard to write about "Mad Men" given how secretive its creator, Matthew Weiner, tends to be -- even something as seemingly benign as the year in which the upcoming season will take place is considered a spoiler of epic proportions. It's easy to get the feeling he'd be just as happy tucking each episode inside a vault once it's finished and bypassing the audience altogether.

But since anyone who watched last season's finale knows that most of the series regulars staged a bit of a palace coup, quitting their jobs at Sterling Cooper, raiding their client files "Ocean's Eleven"-style and setting up their own agency, I feel pretty secure in talking about the new Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce.

There's a welcome sense of discovery as Don Draper (Jon Hamm), moments into tonight's fourth season premiere, walks through the new firm's new offices. It's as though you're entering "Mad Men's" immaculately re-created 1960s-era world again for the first time. (Yes, the decadent drama is still set in the '60s -- no leisure suits or parachute pants for the dapper Mr. Draper. I hope this news doesn't ruin the season for you.)

The Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce headquarters are sleek but small, a near-constant source of regret for Bert Cooper (Robert Morse), who feels the agency overspent to take over a single story in the Time-Life Building when a larger space downtown would have better impressed clients.

"Did you tell them about the second floor?" Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) asks, referring to the ruse -- that construction is under way to double the firm's size -- they've been spreading. "I refuse to be any part of that charade," the dignified Bert responds.

Let's see, what else can I safely reveal?

Don and Roger Sterling (John Slattery) seem to have smoothed over whatever kerfuffle came between them last season, and Roger, one of "Mad Men's" most underutilized assets, is once again in fine form.

"I love how they sit there like a couple of choirboys," he says of their potential new clients, Portland-based makers of wholesome, family-friendly two-piece bathing suits, not to be confused with those scandalous bikinis. "You know one of them's leaving New York with VD."

And when it's revealed that the Advertising Age reporter who just interviewed Don lost a leg in Korea, Roger can barely wait to scowl: "A wooden leg. They're so cheap they can't even afford a whole reporter."

Elsewhere, Don seems more short-tempered than ever, Joan Harris (Christina Hendricks) finally gets her own office, and if you weren't around during the era, you might want to brush up on the comedy stylings of Stan Freberg.

On the home front, young Sally Draper (Kiernan Shipka) is even more delightfully bratty than usual. And, nothing against January Jones, but as tangential as her Betty Draper has become, her salary could have been better spent bringing back some of the old Sterling Cooper gang -- namely the exquisitely bearded Paul Kinsey (Michael Gladis) and poor, mistreated Salvatore Romano (Bryan Batt).

But, then, I guess their absence is sort of a spoiler. And for that, I should probably start watching out for AMC's nattily attired goon squad.

Although after last season and its teacher-dating, reservoir-saving, accordion-playing, crazy-dancing, blackface-singing, foot-severing antics, I'm not sure how much more suffering "Mad Men" could inflict.

Christopher Lawrence's Life on the Couch column appears on Sundays. E-mail him at clawrence@ reviewjournal.com.