It's the end of Mad Men's second series tonight (Tuesday 5 May) on BBC Four (10pm), and what I've seen of it, it has been seriously, seriously good. I'm going to have to have a bit of a catch-up because I missed episode four onwards, but that's ok - there are myriad ways I can do this. Even though series two has been going from strength to strength and has been highly rated across the board (shame no one is watching it), news reaches of casting news for series three.

For all our Mad Men news and reviews go here.

The second series of Mad Men continued last night, and it has, after a little blip, become the must-see drama of the week for me. Last week we saw the fall-out from a catastrophic and fatal plane crash, but this week it was back to normal. And by normal I mean the simmering and multi-layered relationship between Don and Betty Draper.

For all our Mad Men news and reviews, go here.

One of the things I love about Mad Men is that every line seems to be loaded with meaning. In light of all the political machinations - both vocational and social - it's only the viewer who's aware of the hidden meanings, and this, to me, is an example of truly masterful writing. And Mad Men's dialogue is so loaded with double-meaning, it leaves you constantly on the edge of your seat. When Don Draper's long-suffering wife said, "I don't need a manual to know what little boys get up to", it said pretty much everything.

For all our Mad Men news and reviews, go here.

We voted Mad Men in our TV Top 20 last year, and there was good reason. It looked fantastic, the world chisel-jawed Don Draper operated in was seductive and cool, it had rich, simmering drama by the bucket loads (save for one ludicrous episode where the action was transported out of the offices of Sterling Cooper's advertising agency to the Korean war), and the female performances were uniformly fantastic. In fact, that's why I really liked Mad Men - despite the alpha males prowling around the advertising agency office, it was the women (January Jones and Christina Hendricks in particular) who provided the real emotional meat. So hurrah for the return of Mad Men to our screen for its second series!

For all our Mad Men news and reviews, go here.

Here we go for series two of Mad Men. It's really very good, you will have read on these pages and elsewhere. If you're coming to show blind, it's set in the early 1960s, in the new and cool world of advertising. You'll see Don Draper. He's smooth. You'll see other men who smoke a shed-load who rule the roost and treat women badly. You'll see the men take mistresses, cheat on their wives and generally gad about as a lot of men used to in those days. But you'll see the women, who live what appears to be perfect and affluent lives, but underneath it all are desperately bored and unhappy. Sounds like fun, right? There's a trailer for series two, which starts tonight on BBC Four (Tuesday 10 February, 10pm). Oh, and everyone looks amazing.

For all our Mad Men news and reviews, go here.

It's not all been plain sailing for one of my favourite US series, Mad Men, in its series two run. With reports claiming that Matthew Weiner is involved in a pay dispute and he may not return for series three, as well as grumblings from the cast as well. However, the show continues unabated and its cultural reach and significance has been confirmed by, of all people, The Simpsons. Now, you know that you've made it when The Simpsons do a parody of your show, and for the recent Halloween episode, The Simpsons did a beautiful take-off of Mad Men's opening credits (surely some of the coolest out there). So sit back, go over the jump and have a look. It's really great!

For all our Mad Men news and reviews, go here.

Mof's argument that The Wire will always stay a cult show because its on a smallish digital channel may be correct in some ways (and I'm sure hardcore fans of the show will want the show to remain a cult, rather than a mainstream hit), but the series two premiere of Mad Men in the US, on a small subscription channel, proved his argument wrong (sort of). In fact, the amount of awards and plaudits shows like The Wire and Mad Men garner kind of proves Mof's argument wrong on some levels anyway - despite their 'lowly' digital channel status there's still a buzz about them and people still want to watch them. And, in an age where viewing habits have changed (internet, box sets etc), viewing figures aren't the be-all these days. Mad Men, for me, is one of the TV highlights of the year and deserves all the praise it gets. Thankfully, for both the channel's home (AMC) and fans, series two started off extremely well.

OK, so I'm still frothing. After I did a little news round-up for the second series of Mad Men, I just gazed at that picture of Joan like a deranged sort of weirdo (I'm not, I promise) so I thought, "Bugger it, I've got to share this". So here's that picture of Joan (Christina Hendricks) that has put me off my work all morning. Regaining compusure for a moment, I have put on a little video of some of the cast chatting at their series two press junket. It's quite nice and funny and it's after the jump. And I promise I won't talk about Mad Men for the rest of the day.

Mad Men news is not hard to come by at the moment. The second series of this wonderful drama series starts in the US very imminently, and there are stories galore out there. A few days ago the show's creator, Matthew Weiner, was quoted as saying that he has a five-year plan for the show, with time jumps after every series. "In the life of the series, if it continues, I would like to cover this period of people's lives - and that's a five year plan and not a ten-year plan," he said. An AMC person was also quoted as saying: "What he meant was that he wants to leap forward between seasons, not just pick up where the last season leaves off. So he wants to cover a period of ten years in these character's lives, in five seasons." So we'll get five years of the show, which will end in 2011. But wait. No sooner had these quotes circulated, they changed tack.

I bloody love the internet. The Golden Globe-winning series Mad Men was terrific, wasn't it? Just dripping with style and tales of glamour in a fast-changing world. You can get episodes from iTunes and buy the DVD but those kind folks at the show's US home network, AMC, have put the very first episode up online for all to see and luxuriate in its brilliance (click here to have a look). You can go here for our very own Mad Men coverage, and over the jump I've posted the first chapter of the first episode of the first series. The good news is for all the MM freaks out there, series two starts in the US at the end of this month, so here's hoping it comes back to these shores very quickly. Oh, just check out that opening sequence....

Fans of Mad Men will be glad to know that BBC Four is to air the second series of the hit show. So, for those of you who like seeing well dressed people smoking loads, being kinda sexist in a '60s way and good looking women in really cool clothes, this is great news.

According to the press release, the second series of Mad Men will "continue to blur the lines between good and bad, perception and reality. The world is moving in a new direction, can Sterling Cooper keep up?" Meanwhile the private life of Don Draper becomes complicated in a new way. What is the cost of his secret identity?

After last week's bombshell that Donald Draper - the suave, award-winning ad exec at the heart of this brilliant drama series - was not Donald Draper at all (turns out he is actually a guy called Dick Whitman, who swapped name tags with a dead Donald Draper in the Korean War) I really did wonder how I'd react to the last episode of the first series. This series has been subtle, sometimes low-key and multi-layered, and last week's shocker was the only time I harumphed - the twist was far too sensational and 'from way out there' in a weird way. Anyway, I needn't have worried... Mad Men was back to its marvellous, slow-burning best last night for its series finalé.

Mad Men has been really, really, really good. The series won a Golden Globe and, when BBC Four announced that it would be showing it, I was very happy to have a look. It has turned out to be a multi-layered beast, and should be near the top of any end-of-year polls if there's any justice at all. For those who haven't seen it, it tells the story of Sterling Cooper - and advertising agency - circa 1960. Advertising is the big, new thing, and anyone in advertising is very desirable and rock n' roll. The central figure in this slick, very male world is Don Draper, a chiselled ad exec who has everything - a beautiful wife, a brilliant career, a lovely home and two perfect kids. Except this isn't enough for DD, and he's turned out to be one of the most complex male television character we've seen since Tony Soprano.

We all know that Mad Men is pure quality, but I was particularly looking forward to last night's episode. I've been enjoying this series on many levels, and one of them has been the historical aspect. I find that whole early-1960s period really interesting - it's when old conservative America clashed with new, young, hopeful America. We all know where it led, but the seeds of change were sewn during the Nixon versus Kennedy presidential race of 1960. There has been a fascinating subplot in Mad Men - Sterling Cooper had been hired to boost Nixon's profile and that storyline had been bubbling away beneath everything. Now it was the big night - the presidential race of 1960, and for Sterling Cooper it was a chance to see whether its nous and clout could be carried over into the political stage.

I haven't seen Mad Men for the past several weeks, so I was wondering if I had missed loads of crucial stuff and important plot machinations. I'm sure there has been a few things I've missed, but watching Mad Men again last night was like slipping on a new pair of newly-ironed pants. A very pleasant experience, if you were wondering.

I did watch Mad Men, BBC Four's sublime American drama about ad executives in the early 1960s, but I was away for the weekend and unable to get to a pooter to write a proper review. It was, as ever, really, really good - Don Draper had a snog with Rachel Menken, Betty invited new neighbour and single mum Joan over for her daughter's birthday party (which provoked some seriously catty remarks and sneering from the assembled female guests) and Don, after drinking all day, had a meltdown and did a runner. Another great episode.

I've always wondered, however, how many cigarettes are smoked in each episode. So I went back and watch the episode again this morning and I'm happy to report that there were 42 fags smoked during this episode. Which, if I'm correct, works out at one ciggie smoked every minute. Olympic-standard tabbing by anyone's standards.

Last week in this superior new drama series, about the dawn of the advertising industry, we were introduced to a testosterone-soaked office, full of martini-drinking men with power (a horrid combination). The women - we saw the office through the eyes of new PA Peggy - were merely subsidiary and they knew it. Pneumatic head girl Joan, a woman with all the curves and sass you could wish to see, even knew it. She was happy to play the game.

But what of hotshot Don Draper's wife? The beautiful Betty was at home, raising two children in a lovely home in a picture-perfect street while her husband was being the most renowned ad man in New York (as well as enjoying a passionate affair with a volatile fashion designer). As this episode panned out, it was clear that there was trouble in paradise and, while Don and his team were trying to figure out how to market a new deodorant called Right Guard, one question kept coming up, over and over again. What do women want?

I picked a good week to give up smoking. Everyone in BBC Four's brand-new, Golden Globe-winning drama Mad Men is chuffing away. After some marvellous opening credits, we met Don Draper - the chiselled, sharp-suited Creative Director of a major advertising company. Don is sitting in a bar and, as he looks around him, all the attractive people are smoking. This doesn't help Don so much, because he's got an important meeting with Lucky Strike tomorrow and he's in a lather - Readers' Digest magazine has published an article stating that smoking is a health risk and he has to come up with some new selling angles quick. He starts talking to a black waiter (a white waiter comes over and asks him if everything's ok, because this particular black waiter is a bit 'chatty'), who says that he just loves smoking and he's smoked the same brand for years. This doesn't help Don at all, so he drives over to his girlfriend's house - a fashion designer - for some inspiration. After a night of lovemaking, he still hasn't come up with any new angles. But Don is his company's hotshot, and his girlfriend is confident he can come up with something. He always does. Don is untouchable.

This was the first 15 minutes of Mad Men, and I was hooked. In this first section, it crystallised what the show was all about so nicely and incisively - always thinking about what makes people tick, and they way the 1960s was a changing and volatile decade where black and feminist issues were bubbling under the surface of all this smiley-happy narcissism and hinting that it was about to come to the fore.