Last night I watched the season premiere of Mad Man. For some reason I thought the company was relocating to California (San Francisco), where the fellows shed their suits for black cotton turtlenecks and suede car coats. I was wrong.

The episode was bookended by interviews with Don Draper, one from an advertising trade magazine, the other from the Wall Street Journal. In the first interview, Don is cagey and reveals nothing, leading his colleagues to chastise him for a missed opportunity; in the second, he grabs the reins and speaks of the company as if it were the brain behind his face.

Meta highlight: the company has devised a TV spot that looks like content but in fact is an advertisement, something that, to my knowledge, had not been attempted until the 1970s. Later in the episode, a similar strategy for Dove soap is employed, for real.

Character highlight: Don likes to get slapped in bed.

With respect to tone, it felt as though the actors were dancing around the script, as opposed to embodying it. An odd effect, one that reminded me of what happens to all successful shows after the third or fourth season: self-parody.

Speaking of Madison Avenue, I watched Sunday night’s Season Three finale of Mad Men, AMC’s paean to masculinity, persuasion and cigarettes, and, as usual, was entertained by the show’s writing but also by my memory of past shows that had daddies working in advertising, shows such as Bewitched (1964-1972) and Thirtysomething (1987-1991). (Note that the time between the final episode of Bewitched and the first episode of Thirtysomething is within a year of the final episode of Thirtysomething and the first episode of Mad Men, which debuted in 2007.)

Although not surprised by Sunday’s episode (season finales either protract or accelerate the usual flow of events), I was awed by a shot taken from the perspective of the cast: their collective last look at the office of Sterling Cooper, a beautiful arrangement of desks and chairs that spoke more to the end of the 1950s than the end of 1963. Indeed, that many believe the “Sixties” began in 1964 (and ended in 1973) suggests that next year’s shows will have “Don” and “Roger” coming to work not in suits but in suede car coats, their office walls adorned not with Rothkos but Ruschas.

How long Mad Men will run is hard to say. Bewitched lasted eight seasons (with two Darrins), while Thirtysomething (which had a large cast) lasted four. Law & Order has been on TV how many years now? But of those years, has anyone stayed on from the beginning? I like the idea of a show outlasting its characters, so I will be curious to see the kinds of characters the show’s producers introduce next season. How far a show with “mad” in the title will last into the “Sixties” can only be worth watching.