Looks aren't everything

As keenly as Mad Men has been missed during its 17-month intermission, it's not until you hear the vertiginous strains of the opening theme that you really grasp what an important part of the TV landscape this Emmy-monopolizing show has become.

In other words, welcome back, Don Draper, you handsome devil.

Questions, questions, you've got questions. The Season Four finale left a lot of pimple balls up in the air.

Would Don (Jon Hamm) repent of his impetuous marriage to his secretary, Megan (Jessica Paré)? Would Joan (Christina Hendricks) go to term with the baby fathered out of wedlock by Roger (John Slattery)? And how would the Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce ad agency survive the loss of its biggest client, Lucky Strike?

You've come to the right place, pilgrim.

The creator of this period drama, Matthew Weiner, has always demanded that Mad Men's plot developments not be revealed prior to air. And TV critics have maintained that arrangement with cultlike devotion.

Of course, these same critics all but regurgitate the entire plots of other shows such as Missing when they review them.

Personally, I've never really understood the overweening need for secrecy when it comes to Mad Men. Maybe it's because so little actually happens on the show that spoilers would be uniquely deflating to it.

In any event, I'm going rogue. You want to know what happens? (Spoiler avoiders: jump down one paragraph.) There's a surprise party and SCDP engages in a game of one-upsmanship with rival agency Young and Rubicam.

That's pretty much the gist of the two-hour premiere. (Next week, Mad Men returns to its usual 10 p.m. time slot.)

That summary tells you everything and absolutely nothing. The richness of this show, as always, lies in its characters. The events are merely milestones. It doesn't matter if the agency signs a big new client. It's how Pete and Roger and Don each go about pursuing their goals.

To me, Mad Men has always been as much about style as about substance. On this level, Season Five is thus far like a glorious new dawn. The show has never looked more vibrant. Suddenly, colors are exploding everywhere and even the office furniture looks like pop art. As a viewer, you feel like Dorothy, opening the door onto Oz.

Where are we in time? Beats me. But there are fans who make rabbinical studies of this show. By tomorrow, they'll be able to tell you the precise date, based on Peggy's hosiery, or a magazine left on a coffee table, or a Dusty Springfield song playing in the background.

By all accounts, Mad Men's period accuracy is meticulously researched. This attention to detail obviously pays off on the screen, but I'm less concerned with hemlines than with attitudes.

And this is where I part ways with the more rapt MM fans. I find the series' portraits of religion, gender, and youth culture rather glib. There's an air of smugness that settled over Mad Men early in its run. The impact, particularly on the male cast members, has been conspicuous.

While we're at it, the humor on the show often seems mean and forced. Maybe that's why Caroline (Beth Hall) has become one of my favorite characters. She is to SCDP what Rose Marie was to The Alan Brady Show (only she torments Roger instead of Mel Cooley). 

Don Draper remains one of the most fascinating characters on television. Like Superman, his most obvious physical analogue, he struggles with a secret identity.

But at this point, would the discovery of Don's real self, Dick Whitman, cause him more than personal embarrassment? Surely he has proven himself too talented and valuable to be at professional risk.

Despite the rugged individualism Don has cultivated like armor, we find him altered by his most recent marriage and by his life circumstances as the divorced father of three rapidly growing children.

Little Sally (Kiernan Shipka) seems like she's ready and eager to run her own household. But where is the real mom, Betty (January Jones)? Missing entirely from this first night.

It's difficult to generalize about where the gang is as we plunge into the fifth season. Certainly, we're learning something about what it takes to make them individually happy. Or at least what they think it is that will make them happy.

When you're in advertising, desire is your stock in trade. You would think these guys would have learned by now not to drink their own Kool-Aid.