(S35E06) There was a strange moment of nodding recognition at the end of the night, as I watched Jason Sudeikis and January Jones in the cloud-gazing sketch. Throughout, the man pauses to consider the woman's weird behavior and then concedes, "Ohh, you're a very pretty, pretty woman." Yup. That's pretty much how I reacted the entire night, especially during really bad sketches like the farting Grace Kelly (take a moment to think about that: Farting. Grace. Kelly.)

Jones was kind of a stiff host with not particularly daring material, but, goodness gracious, her real-life 50s Barbie prettiness was mesmerizing. Her performances in the mid-century instructional video and the aforementioned cloud-gazing sketch were the best of the evening, but that's not saying much since the rest of her appearances were strange and wooden. Even her good night felt like it had been programmed in and auto-tuned for maximum polite insincerity.

First of all, I have to say that I'm terribly distracted at the moment, because my daughter is watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Even though I just watched it a few months ago, I wouldn't mind watching the entire series again from start to finish. But, alas, there are other things in my stack o' DVDs, so I'll have to be content with hearing it in the background while I work. She just watched the first two eps, and I had totally forgotten that Darla showed up in the very first episode. Interesting. Anyways...

I'll get back to The Wire -- I still have season five to watch -- but this week's Jane After Dark is all about Mad Men. Sometimes I fall deeply and madly in love with a TV show, and that's how it is with AMC's love letter to the 1960s. I raced through season one right after it was released on DVD, but stupidly waited for season two on DVD. I bought it last week and watched the entire season, devouring it like a hearty tenderloin that's perfectly cooked, so I'd be caught up for the season three premiere on August 16. If you haven't watched season two yet, spoilers follow after the jump...

(S34E23) Wow. Way to go, Will Ferrell. Maybe they should just bring back Saturday Night Live alumni for season finales from now on, because this episode was spectacular. Ferrell brought back some old favorites and a slew of famous faces, from the familiar to the inexplicable, including Amy Poehler, Tom Hanks, Anne Hathaway and Artie Lange. Here are some video highlights from the evening (Hulu vids are US only. Sorry, kids... you can also watch these videos at NBC's website).

(S01E01) I think it's really appropriate that the Emmy Award nominations were announced on the same day this show premiered, because if there's any justice in this TV land, we'll be hearing a lot about Mad Men at this time next year.

The television landscape is filled with a lot of shows that are just the same as other shows on other networks. Even when we say "there's nothing else like this on TV right now," it's usually not true. There's usually something a bit (or a lot) like the show we're talking about. Mad Men is one show we can truly say is rather original. Of course, it's original by being retro. It's New York City, 1960. The world of Madison Avenue advertising men. And it is men, as most of the women are in the secretarial pool or gum chewing telephone operators.

But the women have power too, in ways the men don't see.

Is there anyone else as excited about this show as I am? AMC has picked up 13 episodes of a new series titled Mad Men, which will focus on the lives and careers of advertising execs in 1960 New York City.

This sounds fantastic! Of course, we'll have to wait and see how the writing, direction, stories, etc are, but this sounds like a really cool idea for a drama. Or maybe it's just that I'm a sucker for anything filmed or set in New York City in the 1950s or 60s.

It's not everyday that any network picks up a show that is a period piece, something set 30, 40, 50 years ago or more, something almost retro. But I'm really looking forward to this. It will star Jon Hamm, January Jones, Elizabeth Moss (The West Wing), Vincent Kartheiser, and John Slattery (Ed) and was created by and written by The Sopranos' Matt Weiner.