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NEW YORK TIMES: Though the third season of “Mad Men” didn’t quite begin with the jumpstart we were hoping for, it did at least offer a comforting “continuity of service,” to borrow a phrase from Don Draper and Salvatore Romano’s meeting with the father-and-son executives of London Fog. This particular episode didn’t shake us to our core, but it did pick up nicely where Season 2 left off. Like a comfortable Thanksgiving dinner, every crazy member of this extended family was reliably acting out his or her established role. MORE
NEW YORK TIMES: This week marks the return of “Mad Men,” the television drama that serves as anthropological time travel to a world where doctors smoke, sexual harassment is a hoot, and it is never too early for an office drink because it’s always noon somewhere. But as much fun as it is to revel in the cosmetic retro fascination of the era — ooh, bullet bras, up-do hairdos, and finger-snapping hepcats down in the Village — the series about a Madison Avenue ad agency in the early 1960s works best as a startling reminder of just how distant the near past really is. Americans may be heavier, with a diminished attention span, even less classy than the troubled souls of the Men in the Gray Flannel Suit costume drama. But clearly, we’re better off in most regards. Consider the show’s treatment of three themes: personal health, attitudes toward race, and sexual equality. MORE