'Mad Men' Season 6 Premiere Set For April 7

Season 6 opens in Hawaii, anyone else excited to see Mr. Draper in his bathing suit?

Man Men fans rejoice, not only is the new season set to premiere this spring, but it will be a whopping two-hour season opener on Sunday April 7 at 9pm. The following Sunday Mad Men will resume its normal 10pm time slot, with Don Draper himself (Jon Hamm) boasting directing credits for episode 2.

Matthew Weiner, ‘Mad Men’ creator, writer, producer, and director

Mad Men mastermind Matthew Weiner decided to echo the Season 5 two hour movie premiere and give fans another extra long, extra juicy season premiere. I think that’s only fair that it open with an extended episode, since they tend to make us wait so long in between seasons. Although I understand the long hiatus until Season 5 was more than just torturing fans, but was halted due to contract negotiations.

Weiner revealed that Season 6 will be Mad Men’s second to last in a recent interview with The Daily Beast. Weiner believes having an end date in sight has helped shaped the final two seasons.“I came in with my plan for the season,” Weiner said. “I was like, ‘I want to save that for the last season, I want to save that; I want to wait on that’ and I was pulled aside by Maria and Andre Jacquemetton, my executive producers, who said, ‘Don’t do that. You’ve never done that before. Let’s just use all the story that we have and we’ll deal with it on the other side of it.’ It really helped. Because I don’t want to change—part of it is superstition and part of it is the only way I know how to do it.”

“I never had the guarantee of even one more season for the first few seasons I did the show. So I would just use all the story I had. And it’s a much better way to do it,” Weiner explains of his thought process when writing the show, “It’s much better for the audience. It’s much more satisfying for us than going through some half-measure and wasting 13 episodes on a set-up.” While sometimes the idea of “using up all the story”  might lead writers to fabricate an outrageous and unbelievable following season (ahem, Grey’s Anatomy), the Mad Men writers have a remarkable job of creating fresh, compelling, and shocking story lines.

Both Peggy and Pete are back for good in Season 6

In his interview with The Daily Beast, Weiner also confirmed (and squashed) some other gossip in the rumor mill. Many fans were worried that Elisabeth Moss would not be returning as the ambitious ad-woman Peggy Olson. Weiner promises she’ll be back and better than ever.  There was also some speculation that Pete Campbell (Vincent Kartheiser) might also commit suicide, a la Layne Price at the end of last season. Weiner says, “I know the character of Pete very well and I don’t see Peter Campbell as someone who would ever commit suicide.” Campbell and his despicable behavior will be back for another season and I couldn’t be more excited to see what downward spiral his character takes next.

For the most part though, Weiner stuck to his guns about not revealing any major spoilers. Guess we’ll just have to tune in on April 7 to see what the future holds for Don, Megan, Joan, Roger, Pete, Betty and the rest of the booze drinking, cigarette smoking, wildly dysfunctional group.