Vincent Kartheiser

Question: Thank you so much for your review of Mad Men! I probably would have missed this brilliant show were it not for you. As my friends and I watched this, we all kept asking, "Why isn’t this on HBO?!" Do you have any insights about how a high-budget, top-tier drama like this winds up on a nearly unknown (by Nielsen standards) third- or fourth-tier cable channel? Don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful to AMC for picking it up, but it really makes you wonder what the other networks and cable outlets are doing.— Vance H.

Matt Roush: Sometimes great TV turns up in the most unexpected places, so why not look at it this way: AMC has much greater reach than subscriber-only HBO, as it’s a basic-cable network that I would think nearly every system has carried since almost the dawn of cable. (I’ve never been anywhere where it wasn’t available.) HBO had a crack at picking up Mad Men; Matthew Weiner, who created the show, got his job on The Sopranos by giving David Chase the spec-script pilot of what would become Mad Men. (Something tells me HBO would love to have something right about now that’s getting these reviews.) What you’re seeing in cable is a stepping-up of ambition by many networks that are looking for a series or two to "brand" themselves the way The Closer does for TNT, The Shield and Nip/Tuck and, hopefully, Damages do for FX, and so on. AMC has been in the market for just such a series, and it looks like they’ve finally found it. The imported Hustle was a good start, but this takes it to the next level.

Question: I checked out the debut of AMC’s Mad Men on your recommendation, and I loved it. Fresh, stylish and stirring! I was especially excited to see familiar faces Vincent Kartheiser (Connor from Angel) and Christina Hendricks (Saffron from Firefly). I guess you can tell I’m a Joss Whedon fan! I was very happy to discover that the Mad Men episodes will be available On Demand through my cable provider. This got me thinking about VOD’s potential to completely revolutionize the television industry. It could impact scheduling with choose-your-own prime-time ability, while invalidating the Nielsen rating system (thank goodness) once networks can get true reads of viewership. This would hopefully extend the lives of beloved but not mainstream shows from minds like Joss Whedon and Judd Apatow. And I can’t even imagine the changes to come in the world of commercials. What are your thoughts on VOD and the future of scheduled television?— Jennifer T.

Matt Roush: On Demand viewing is a terrific innovation (I plan to use it frequently next week to catch up on some of what I missed during press tour, especially on HBO), and it may very well impact viewing habits and scheduling as time goes on. But for now, it’s probably having just a slight impact, given the relatively small number of people who actually subscribe to these services. In this DVR and now VOD age, so many people assume scheduling is an obsolete concern, and for them, maybe it is. But for millions of others, it still matters when a show airs (and on cable, how often it airs). So while I’m glad that the On Demand option gives more people more opportunities to catch something as terrific as Mad Men, I’m not going to stop reminding people that its first-run airing is Thursdays at 10 pm/ET and that it shouldn’t be missed.