At the 2007 TCA Press Tour, the critics were all abuzz about this new show on AMC called “Mad Men.” Some of us had seen the screeners of the first episode or two, some of us had not, but there was absolutely no-one in the house whose curiosity wasn’t piqued about this series which would take place in the early 1960s and examine the life and times of ad men…and, of course, the women who love them. Over the course of the year, “Mad Men” became a full-fledged television phenomenon, bringing new attention to AMC as a place to find top-notch original series (a reputation aided in recent months by “Breaking Bad”), and with the recent release of Season 1 of “Mad Men” on DVD, the excitement over the impending premiere the show’s second season is at a fever pitch.

How disappointing, then, that the show’s creator, Matthew Weiner, is so steadfastly against revealing anything about the upcoming season.

Not that I blame the guy. As much as I love a good spoiler, I can totally understand why a show’s producer wouldn’t want to spill his guts about what we can expect to see in the future, because he wants us to be as surprised as everyone else. But with that said, AMC did provide us with the first two episodes of the new season, and he was even hesitant to discuss the events that take place in those.

So, y’know, basically, the big scoop we can reveal about the second season of “Mad Men” is that there is one.

Okay, I’m just kidding. There’s a little bit that we’ve gleaned about it, and the bit that’s probably going to be the most frustrating for those who like to get their answers quickly is that there’s been a bit of a time shift, jumping ahead slightly rather than picking up immediately after the events at the end of Season 1. There’s a specific reason that Weiner has opted to go this direction, however…well, actually, make that two reasons.

“In the life of the series, if it continues, I would like to cover this period of people’s lives,” he explained, “and that’s a five-year plan and not a ten-year plan. The other thing is that I felt that, just in terms of the energy in the story, to step away…when I thought about the last episode of last season, I thought, ‘Well, I can continue from that point. We can just do what we do, which is just go to the next month,’ because pretty much each episode is a month. But I kind of thought, ‘Why don’t we just go ahead? And I can start the story fresh, and, at the same time, there will be all these events that happened in between that will provide an additional storytelling energy. And, you know, you’ve heard me say that I don’t think people change or whatever, the world was definitely in the process of changing, and this gave us a chance to sort of accentuate that. And I think that, from when you watch the first episode of this year, you will immediately look back at last season and think that people as grimy and gritty as a lot of last season was, they do seem more innocent.”

Ah, but what do you say to the people who just want to know what happened with Peggy and the baby?

“I’d say trust me,” said Weiner, with a smile, “and I will give you the information as you need it, in the most entertaining fashion.”

The question was asked to the cast as a whole about how the popularity of “Mad Men” has affected their lives, but although Robert Morse, Christina Hendricks, John Slattery, Vincent Kartheiser, Elisabeth Moss, and January Jones were all on the panel, it was Jon Hamm who finally took the reigns and opted to speak up.

“It’s phenomenal, a wonderful experience,” Hamm acknowledged, “but the sort of swirl that happens around the show kind of exists outside of the show, and I think I speak for everybody when I say that it remains kind of fun to go to work. It has been that since the pilot, it has been that through the entire first season, and it has been that since we started the second season…a process, by the way, that’s encompassed about two-and-a-half years of all of our lives. Speaking personally, I’ve been so proud of this thing from the beginning that to have it validated and vindicated in the world of television criticism and the culture is amazing, and it makes you feel like…well, John Slattery said it once: ‘You’re not crazy. Other people like good stuff, too.’ You know, I’m not trying to shit on ‘Dancing with the Stars,’ but it feels like, okay, good, we’re not all lunatics.”

After the laughter died down, Hamm grinned and said, “Yes, I’ll be on ‘Dancing with the Stars’ next.”

Slattery himself chimed in when the question was posed about how the actors handle Weiner’s tendency to play things so close to the vest with the scripts (no, it’s not just limited to the critics and the viewers), surprising some by describing it as the best part of the experience.

“With television, you sort of sign on in the beginning, knowing what a good writer Matt is, and you hope for the best,” said Slattery, “and then each week, these scripts just keep getting better and better. We are all texting each other, going, ‘Do you believe that? Did you see that coming?’ And then we are at the table, reading these scripts, and everybody is oohing and aahing and laughing and is moved by every script. It’s an unbelievable surprise every week. And I think that’s what’s also so good about the show is that it’s so unpredictable. The characters go places you did not expect them to go, that you don’t see coming, and so much of television, film…I mean, it’s been done. So speaking for myself, it’s a great surprise every week. Even in scripts that you are not that heavy in or you don’t have very much to do, it’s so involving. You are so moved by these characters and intrigued by them and interested and root for them. Yeah, we don’t know very much in advance at all…and I’m afraid to ask half the time, because it’s like planning your own death. Especially for me. I’m hanging on by a thread!”

It’s clearly not just Slattery who feels this way: even the legendary Robert Morse admitted that he comes into table reads even when he’s not even in an episode, just to watch things unfold. “It is astounding the way the direction of this show is going in the second season,” said Morse. “It’s unbelievable. And we are sworn to secrecy, and we have to burn our scripts. We can’t talk to our wives and our loved ones or anybody about what’s going on, and we barely talk with one another about what’s going on.”

Have you gotten the impression yet that we’re not going to be offering any spoilers here?

Well, even so, it was a highly enjoyable panel, and there’s more “Mad Men” fun to come on the 15th, when I’ll be touring the set and getting more one-on-one time with the cast. In the meantime, though, here are a few more highlights from the panel:

* Jon Hamm on how Don sees Peggy: “I think Don has a lot of respect for Peggy. I think that Don’s relationship with women is complicated because his history with women is complicated. But I think the women that he’s attracted to are women who are, in some ways, independent and have their own sort of thing going on. And Peggy, for such a young person, has a lot of that sort of essence that is appealing to Don. He’s not sexually attracted to her, but it’s a respect, and I think that he sees in Peggy…I could be completely offbase, but I think he sees in Peggy a lot of what he admires in a coworker and a colleague and in a person to be trusted. So it’s fairly high praise from someone like Don who doesn’t dole it out very liberally.”

* Christina Hendricks on playing a woman in the sexist ’60s: “We’ve all played different kinds of characters that are going through strange things, and this just happens to be what these characters are going through. I think the first time we read a script and we all sit around a table and read it together is the first time it sort of all sort of seems shocking and hits you in the face the first time, sort of the things that men will say to women or not say or look or, you know, these sorts of things. We all sort of have a twisted sense of humor, I think a lot of us, and we also get a kick out of it because it just seems so extreme. And then you just hunker down and work on your material, and you show up, and that’s your character. And I think it just sort of becomes the world that you are playing. I certainly don’t think of it when I’m going through the process of working on those scenes. It just becomes the world of that character.”

* Vincent Kartheiser on the occasional weirdness of Pete: “I think the interesting thing about doing television is you get the opportunity to show a lot of parts of a character that probably that person wouldn’t even show to the whole world, you know, the scene where he sits at home is with the .22 rifle while his wife yells at him something that probably a lot of
people at the office don’t know a lot about. So I think we’re all kind of Pete, and I don’t think it’s a great stretch…at least not for me. Maybe no one’s like Pete. Maybe it’s just me. But it’s not a great stretch for me to imagine him doing most of those things, and I think it’s in all of us.”

* Robert Morse on being the oldest person in the cast: “Sometimes I have to hobble to the set, and it is a strange thing coming in and seeing all of the young secretaries and knowing that I’m the Rudy Vallee part! But this is an astounding show and, at my age, to be part of something that is absolutely magnificent…I know everybody talks about their TV show as being the best and all of that, but I sincerely am very, very profoundly lucky and thankful to be with all of these people and Matt and the writers and the actors. It’s a tremendous experience at this time in my life and after ‘How to Succeed in Business Without Even Trying” and doing ‘Tru’ and a one man show, to have this opportunity to come to work…and I even come to work when I’m not working because I don’t belong to a senior club. So I feel this is my club, and I come down to the set sometimes just to get the free lunch.”

And, lastly, the women in the cast on how the show’s costuming has affected their own shopping tendencies:

January Jones: Well, I’m not wandering around in my vintage sixties dresses anymore.
Elisabeth Moss: It’s true. I don’t really want to go vintage shopping ever.
Christina Hendricks: I think a lot of us like to dress vintage, anyway, and now we feel like, “Oh, people are going to think I’m in costume. I can’t wear that thing that I love.”
Elisabeth Moss: Yes.
Christina Hendricks: We can’t wear it out.
Elisabeth Moss: It’s, like, “Oh, my God, it’s so sixties. I can’t wear that!”
Christina Hendricks: “Now I look like Joan.” Yeah.
Matthew Weiner: But everyone else is now dressing like you guys.
Christina Hendricks: Well, that makes it even harder because you go shopping now, and so many designers have been influenced by it, and you are looking through the racks, and it looks like you are looking through the costume rack on set.

Bonus geek moment: In the middle of discussing how wonderful an experience “Mad Men” has been and who he’s met as a result of the show, Matthew Weiner suddenly gestured toward the back of the room and said, “Stan Freberg is right back there.” I don’t know why Stan Freberg was right back there…not that he doesn’t have a long history in advertising that has no doubt been incorporated, at least in spirit, into the series, but why attend a TCA panel?…but indeed he was. And when the panel ended, I walked right back there, introduced myself, shook his hand, and thanked him for all the great stuff he’s done over the years. And if you’re still reading but are wondering who the hell Stan Freberg is, get reading.