The discomfort starts strong right out of the gate in the first episode, in which Galifianakis basically molests Michael Cera. There is a common thread of one-sided sexual tension in many of the episodes, and certainly not just with the female guests, though it may be strongest in the episode featuring Natalie Portman. It is a testament to her skill as an “acteress” that this episode is one of the most authentic, as if she were actually just in the midst of a nightmarish interview set up by the most incompetent agent imaginable. Other episodes are more clearly staged, and perhaps the weakest is the one with Will Ferrell, if only because the two are generally too chummy with each other, at least until the end.

The series is at its best when Galifianakis is openly hostile to his guests, like the episodes featuring Ben Stiller and “Brad Lee Cooper.” Though this hostility is common throughout the series, only “Conan O. Brien” gets an explanation, which is that Galifianakis thought he had a shot at “The Tonight Show.” Another especially convincing episode features Galifianakis’ “twin brother,” Seth, interviewing a wooden-faced Sean Penn, who really seems like he might haul off and punch Galifianakis at any moment. As with Portman, it is Penn’s acting skill that pulls off the joke so well.

A pitch-perfect spoof of bad, desperate public access talk shows, “Between Two Ferns” is easily one of the best offerings from the always enjoyable Funny or Die. Even the opening and closing theme music feels authentic, though it is actually lifted from Bernard Herrmann‘s “Taxi Driver” score, which adds to Galifianakis’ creepy, angry vibe. I’m not sure how well it would work as a full-length show on television, but in the small segments available online, it is hilarious.

Described by host Amy Poehler as “a celebration of real friendship, real fellowship, and a kind of community with other girls,” the web series “Smart Girls at the Party” is a kind-hearted, fun and educational program for kids and their parents alike, but especially for young girls. Often specifically focusing on girls who enjoy activities traditionally thought of as being more for boys, the series enjoyed a significant viewership boost in its first season when it introduced its youngest interviewee, seven-year-old Ruby, who speaks precociously about feminism. Its most-viewed episode to date features a 14-year-old boxer named Precela, and another highlight features a young robotics engineer named Rachel.

These are the “girls who are changing the world by being themselves,” in the words of Poehler, who hosts the show with the tongue-in-cheek seriousness of a news anchor before ending each episode with a dance party. Along with producer Meredith Walker and musical director Amy Miles, Poehler explores the special talents and interests of each girl – or in a few episodes, groups of girls – and interviews them, always ending on a “very serious question,” such as “pizza or cotton candy?” or “which is cuter, a baby panda or a baby monkey?” However, despite poking fun at self-serious interview questions, the series never makes fun of the girls or treats them or their interests with cynicism or irony. Instead, it clearly aims to imbue its young audience with a sense of self-worth and individuality, without being boring or preachy.

Now in its second season, the series has markedly improved from its first few episodes, adding a “World Famous 20 Second Song” segment for Miles and boasting higher production values. There are also some familiar faces in the dance parties that parents will enjoy spotting, including Poehler’s husband Will Arnett (who returns from the first season), as well as her “Parks and Recreation” co-stars Aziz Ansari, Nick Offerman, Rashida Jones and Aubrey Plaza. Look closely and you’ll also spot folks like Jon Hamm, David Cross and Jack McBrayer in later episodes. With its own new channel on YouTube, “Smart Girls at the Party” is slicker and more fun than ever, and is highly recommended for viewing with children, especially daughters, between the ages of five and fifteen.

Bullz-Eye: So are you psyched that “The Killing” is finally back?

Eric Ladin: I am. It’s about time! I think everybody is.

BE: Of course, you realize that a lot of people are really just desperate at this point to find out definitively who killed Rosie Larson.

EL: I do realize that, yeah. [Laughs.] I’ve been reminded of that quite a lot over the last nine months.

BE: Were you shocked at the outcry about the lack of resolution in the season finale?

EL: I was, a little bit. I knew that there would definitely be some people that were upset, but I didn’t foresee the hatred and…just the pure venom that was spat towards our writers. [Laughs.] Yeah, I was a little shocked by that.

BE: At least there was a small but somewhat vocal group that was reminded people that we didn’t find out who killed Laura Palmer until the second season of “Twin Peaks.”

EL: That’s correct. And if you ask David Lynch, he’ll probably tell you that the biggest mistake he made was telling people who killed her at all. I think he said – this was in an interview I read – that if he was able to do it again, he’d never tell who the killer was. So, yeah, I don’t believe that there was anywhere that said that you were guaranteed to find the killer in Season 1, but by the same token, I think that AMC’s PR probably could’ve handled it a speck differently. With that said, as a TV viewer, I would not have expected to find the killer in Season 1. So I guess there’s that.

BE: I don’t hold a grudge, but when I talked to Veena Sud before the series premiered, she did say that everyone would be pleased by the resolution of Season 1. So maybe she had bigger plans that never came to fruition.

EL: [Laughs.] Maybe so.

BE: So how did you find your way onto “The Killing” in the first place? You’d obviously already been part of the AMC family before that, having played Betty’s brother on “Mad Men,” but…

EL: Yeah, I had. But I had a working relationship with the casting directors, and they had approached my representation with this role and said that they had me in mind for it. And then I went in and auditioned, and that was that. But, y’know, as soon as I read the script, as soon as I got it, I knew it was something that I felt very strongly about and wanted to be a part of. It just was so different from anything else I had read.

BE: Going in, how much were you told about Jamie’s plotline beyond the pilot?

EL: You mean after we were shooting, or during the audition process?

BE: During the audition process.

EL: Not much. I kind of gathered what I could from the pilot script and had some conversations with them about it when I came in to speak with them before the audition, but not very much at all. I just kind of came up with stuff, like we always do, and I guess my instincts were correct.

BE: What would say you brought to the character that hadn’t existed on the page before you got there?

EL: You know, it was important for me that… [Hesitates.] There were rewrites on the pilot, and I think that through the first draft and also just through first impressions of Jamie, you don’t see a lot of humility. You see a guy who’s extremely cutthroat. But what you don’t see, I don’t think, is that there’s a reason for everything he does, and he’s always just kind of thinking several steps ahead. There’s a very deliberate and thoughtful process that’s going on through his head, and there’s a reason he’s doing everything he’s doing, so it was important for me as I started to explore him to make sure that that came across. But like most great television, that’s not going to happen right at the beginning. You have to allow characters to kind of live and breathe a little bit before you get to know them.

BE: Initially, your predominant scenes are with Billy Campbell, who plays Darren Richmond, but as the first season went on, you ended up working a bit with Patrick Gilmore, who plays Thomas Drexler.

EL: I did!

BE: There’s a particular scene with Jamie and Drexler…

EL: Was it when we went to his house and he had the 19-year-olds swimming in the rooftop pool?

BE: It was, in fact.

EL: [Laughs.] Yeah, that’s quite an apartment. It’s a famous bachelor pad here in Vancouver that…I think they’ve used it in several other films and stuff. But it was great. Patrick’s fantastic. I love his work on the show, I think that he’s a really talented guy, and it was fun working with him. We got along great, so it was a lot of fun.

BE: Can you speak at all to what we’re going to see in Season 2, either with Jamie specifically or with the show in general?

EL: Yeah, I think that, in terms of Jamie specifically, it’s going to be a different to Jamie than you’ve ever seen. Things happen right off the bat, moments into Season 2, that will let the audience see parts of Jamie and, more importantly, parts of Jamie and Darren Richmond’s relationship that you’ve never seen before. And for Jamie, it’s about finding out how important it is that he cultivates this friendship, and the lines are blurred between work and friendship, as I navigate the season. And then overall, I think just as a theme for Season 2, it’s about the past coming back to haunt us…and every character has that weaved in their storyline. Everybody’s decisions that they’ve made, everybody’s secrets that they’ve tried to keep buried, are all coming to head in Season 2.

BE: Are you hopeful that the people who felt like they got burned by Season 1 give the show another chance?

EL: If not, they can go watch something else. [Laughs.] I’m just being honest. Am I hopeful? Well, obviously. I’ve done a lot of good work out there, as has everyone in the cast, and I think it’s a show that deserves the attention. So, yeah, I’m absolutely hopeful. If people aren’t going to turn back in because they were upset by Season 1, then, frankly, this isn’t a television show for them. They can go watch “Hawaii Five-0.” And nothing against “Hawaii Five-0,” but this just isn’t their television show. This is a show that is for somebody who wants to watch character development, wants to watch themes, wants to watch a family get torn apart and how they react to that and respond to that, how detectives don’t draw their gun every single episode, that there’s more methodical and cerebral things that go on in day-to-day life when trying to solve a murder.

BE: For those who might be tuning in with the mindset of “I’m giving you one more chance,” will they get enough in the early hours of Season 2 to feel like it’s been worth their while to give “The Killing” another go?

EL: I think so, yeah. I feel like the first two hours are a fantastic two hours. I think they answer some questions that people were unsatisfied with, maybe, in the first season, and things that have been lingering on their mind throughout the hiatus between Seasons 1 and 2. But in true fashion of our television show, they’re going to open some more doors. But, you know, I think that’s kind of the great thing about this show. It’s why people like to sit around and talk about “Lost.” “What are your theories? What are your theories?” And the same with “Twin Peaks.” We have that in our show. “I think he did it.” “Well, I don’t know, ’cause the way he did this…” And I think that breeds conversation, it breeds theories and all that, and I think that’s what makes it kind of fun.

BE: The Onion AV Club, although they may not have loved the entire first season, had a fun thing going with each review where they declared the episode’s Guilty, Guiltier, and Guiltiest characters.

EL: Yeah, and that’s kind of… For me, at the end of a standard procedural, it’s tied up and it’s finished, and there’s not really much more to talk about. Television should make you think, make you leave and go back in your head and think about the scenes you saw and why people did certain things. I mean, I think one of the things in particular with this show that the writers do so well, and one of the payoffs in Season 2 for viewers who were fans of Season 1 and have stuck with the show, all of a sudden things are going to start to unravel as we get closer, and you’re going to start to be able to call back to the things that happened in Season 1 and go, “Oh, that’s why they did that! Okay, all right, I get it now…” They do an incredible job of mapping out the entire two seasons, so, y’know, I think that’s gonna be a huge payoff for our avid fans.

BE: My favorite episode of Season 1, even though it got mixed reviews from critics, was 1.11 (“Missing”), just because you actually got to feel like you knew Sarah and Holder.

EL: Absolutely. I love that episode. A lot of people did not. A lot of people thought that it was a stall tactic. But I am right with you. I thought that it was a perfect chance to get to really know those two characters and realize a little more about their relationship. And it also shows that, even though it’s television, other things happen in our day-to-day lives. Even detectives. Things happen in their daily lives that they have to deal with in addition to the crime they’re trying to solve. So I enjoyed it.

BE: I wanted to touch on a few other things you’ve worked on over the years. First of all, how did you come to be the narrator on the History Channel series “Mudcats”?

EL: Oh! That was also an audition process. In voiceover, I’ve started to get a little more work here and there, and things have started to get on kind of a roll for me, which is awesome. I really enjoy doing voiceover. I think they probably heard my voice on something, and then I went in, and…I think we did about three runs of it in different fashions, and then they offered me the job. It was a blast. It was a blast to do. They’re really great. All the producers are fantastic, and the show… [Starts to laugh.] The show is neat. It’s not something I would do. I don’t know that I’d stick my hand in a hole for a 60-pound catfish. But it’s fun watching these guys do it.

BE: Have you seen that they’ve already spotlighted the series on “The Soup”?

EL: [Laughs.] No! What did they say?

BE: Oh, you know: Joel McHale picked out as many sexual double entendres on your show as he does for “Hillbilly Handfishing.”

EL: Nice! That’s fantastic! I’ll have to look that up on YouTube. That’s funny!

BE: On “Mad Men,” you get to play Betty Draper’s younger brother. What was it like being a part of that ensemble?

EL: It’s amazing. You know, that’s a show that, in all honesty, I think is maybe one of the best television shows ever. I love “Mad Men.” I’m a huge fan of that show. And, y’know, I got to work very closely with Jon (Hamm) and January (Jones), and that was a treat. And just working with Matt Weiner…he’s incredibly specific, and he’s so detail-oriented in everything from the writing to the sets to the costumes…which, of course, everybody hears about all the time. But it is so true, and having worked on it, you see that first hand. And it’s pretty great.

BE: Presumably you can neither confirm nor deny if we’ll be seeing William in the upcoming season.

EL: I cannot. [Laughs.] In the secretive fashion of “Mad Men” and AMC’s shows in general, I can neither confirm nor deny that.

BE: You’ve done a lot of one-off roles on shows as well, particularly in the last year or so, where you turned up on “Criminal Minds,” “Miami Medical, “Dark Blue,” and so on. Do you have a favorite of the bunch that really stands out for you?

EL: You know, they’ve all been great. I think one of the ones…I worked on “Justified” earlier this year, which is a cool show, and I had a lot of fun working on that because I’m a fan and I think they’re great over there. And…going back, I think one of my favorite shows that I’ve worked on was “Cold Case.” That was a way back, but I worked with a fantastic director named Paris Barclay, who I’ve worked with since then, and he’s fantastic. I also worked with a great actor named Arlen Escarpeta. I’ve remained close with both of them, so that was a lot of fun and something that I’ll always remember.

BE: What was the “Generation Kill” experience like?

EL: Maybe the best ever. [Laughs.] Yeah, that was seven months in Africa, shooting this really intense but great show, but it came at a perfect time in my life, and it really helped me kind of get on the career path that I’m on right now. HBO, as I’m sure you always hear, is fantastic to work with, but that show in particular just…it gave all of us an experience that I’m not sure we’ll have again. It was something special, and a lot of those guys I’m still very, very close with today.

BE: You don’t hear as much about that show as you do, say, “The Wire,” but how interactive was David Simon on the set?

EL: Extremely. Ed Burns was a little bit more interactive, only because about a month into our shooting schedule, “The Wire” picked back up. So David went back to “The Wire,” and he would come back intermittently, and Ed stayed with on set with us throughout the remainder. So he was there the whole seven months. But both are fantastic, both have such a unique way of working. I’ve said before, one of the most fantastic things about them is that they really allow you to play and find your character, and once you do, they’re so open to hearing what you have to say and allowing you to kind of test the waters with things you want to do and things you want to explore. They’re really great, and they’re really fantastic people to work for.

BE: Now, you filmed the episodes in South Africa and…where else?

EL: We started in Namibia, spent about five weeks there, and then we spent close to three months in South Africa, in a little town called Upington, which is right in the middle of South Africa. Maybe a little north of the middle, but pretty much right there in the center. And then we went to Maputo, in Mozambique, and we spent maybe two months there to finish off. So it was quite a trip. And in the meantime, we traveled, and when we had a few days off, we went to Zimbabwe and Zambia on trips, and we went scuba diving off the coast of Tofu Beach…oh, we had a ball.

BE: How do you enjoy doing the voiceover work for video games?

EL: It’s cool! It’s a lot more work than I thought it was, I’ll tell you that. With “inFAMOUS 2,” because that was motion-capture work in addition to just the voice work, it got grueling. And not to mention, Cole McGrath doesn’t do a lot of sitting around on his couch. [Laughs.] He’s jumping and climbing and flying and shooting and killing and everything in between. So, yeah, it was a neat experience and something I would gladly welcome again if the opportunity arose.

BE: Lastly, most of your work as an actor has been dramatic. Has there been a comedic role that you’ve had that you’d recommend?

EL: You know… [Starts to laugh.] I love doing comedy, but, yeah, for some reason, my career has kind of continued to steer me toward hour-long television. I’ve booked half-hour pilots that seemed to never get off the ground. Maybe that’s because I’m involved in them…? I don’t know. But, no, I can’t think of anything in particular. But I hope to be putting some more comedy under my belt soon.

BE: Well, I was mostly curious about this movie called “Bar Starz” that’s on your IMDb page…

EL: Oh. Oh, wow. Did you see how I didn’t mention that? [Laughs.]

BE: I haven’t seen the movie. I’ve only seen the poster. But having seen that, that’s why I had to ask.

EL: Well, that, uh, is a comedy. So there’s that. And, uh, yeah, there I am on the poster with my shirt off. [Laughs.] It actually was a very fun project to work on. It’s on Netflix, if you have 90 minutes to kill.

BE: We’ll be linking to that…

EL: It’s got an incredible cast, actually. One of my buddies, Jon Bernthal (“The Walking Dead”) is in it, and there’s some other great actors in the movie, but…it’s, uh, fairly silly. [Laughs.] Definitely not for everyone.

“Mad Men” always had the feel of a show that couldn’t go on forever. It’s too smart, too ambitious, too consistent to live forever in a television world so full of subpar material. Basically, it’s too good to last.

So, it was disturbing, but not surprising to hear “Mad Men” cast and creators reveal the show is ready to retire from the advertising business after its seventh season.

For now – to celebrate the show’s fifth season – media joined fans of the show at the 2012 PaleyFest in Los Angeles to see what’s ahead for the most stylish and one of most (mad) manly shows on TV. Series stars Jon Hamm and January Jones joined John Slattery, Vincent Kartheiser, Kiernan Shipka and creator/executive producer Matthew Weiner for a red carpet episode screening and Q&A.

It was heartbreak for many of the male fans in attendance as the voluptuous and witty Christina Hendricks was otherwise engaged and couldn’t attend. Of course, it’s also possible she was laying low following her recent Twitter picture scandal in which said voluptuousness was on display for all the world to see.

Obviously, though still a couple years away, the specter of a series conclusion dominated much of the media’s bombardment of questions.

“As I’ve said, I don’t want to overstay our welcome,” Weiner said. “When I was a writer on “Sopranos,” I thought it was difficult sometimes to come up with stories that hadn’t already been covered on previous seasons or by other productions in the genre – other mob movies or TV shows. The fifth season is finished now, and I’m planning on seven. It’s just really hard to do this show.”

Pushing the idea of a final season aside, the hundreds of fans in attendance at the Saban Theater wanted the scoop on the new season. Last season ended with Don Draper – legally free of ice queen wife Betty and seemingly emerging from the shadow of alcoholism – suddenly getting engaged to Megan. Hamm said the major season-spinning plot twist felt like a shock right up until cast and crew made it official on film.

“(Weiner) and I talked about that ending for weeks before we actually shot it,” Hamm said. “But, even after all of that time, when it came time to shoot the scene, I was left wondering if it was all a fake. Was it just going to be a dream sequence or something?”

“I was just glad to see the season end up on sort of a hopeful, upbeat note,” Hamm added, “because my character had been on such a downward spiral throughout the season.

Weiner made it clear that, on the “Mad Men” set, the talented collective cast stays in character and interacts as a family as the top secret scripts unfold.

Weiner explained, “When I directed the scene where Don told his coworkers about the engagement, we filmed the group’s reaction shots first – a reverse angle. The other actors were mostly frozen – not a lot of reaction.”

“Then, we turned the camera around to see what they were so stunned by, and it was (Hamm) smiling as broadly as he ever has playing the role. That unnerved everyone. There hasn’t been a lot of smiling in (Draper’s life) recently before that moment.”

Hamm added, “I find myself really hoping that this works out for my character – after watching him struggle through the divorce and trying to give up his drinking.”

“We had that episode earlier in the last season in which (Draper) documented his struggles to stop drinking in his own journal. I think that story offered a new glimpse into how (Draper) was examining himself and evolving.”

While Hamm’s character moved on to a new potential relationship, ex-wife Betty Draper Francis (Jones) continued struggling with life as an often stern and unforgiving mother.

“I’m looking forward to see how people react to Betty now,” Jones said. “For a while, people have run away from me on the street all the time because they see how Betty treats her children. I think they’re worried about me becoming a mother myself now because they think I’m really going to be like that.”

“In this new season, I think Betty is still evolving, and I see her improving as a person.”

As the fifth season gets ready to roll on AMC, Hamm is following up on the longtime tradition of a series’ big star taking his shot at work on the other side of the camera by taking on some directing duties. It’s up to everyone else now to catch up to the idea.

“(The rest of the cast) said they’ll never work with me again. Actually, everyone was very supportive, and I got a lot of great advice from the other cast members.”

Since AMC let slip a few trailers this week to promote the new season of “Mad Men,” I figured this would be a good time to revisit the cocktail party thrown by the network during the January TCA Press Tour, where I was able to get a few minutes with a few of the cast members, but here’s the score, so you don’t get too excited: I got a couple of minutes one on one with John Slattery (Roger Sterling) and Rich Sommer (Harry Crane), got a single question with Jon Hamm, and was able to ask precisely nothing of Christina Hendricks. I did, however, stand next to her for an extended period of time, and just for the record, she’s just as gorgeous as in person as she is on TV and in photos…which, come to think of it, might have had something to do with why I never managed to ask a question. (Mostly, though, it was because I’m not into trying to out-talk other people, which was the modus operandi of just about everyone else surrounding her at the time.)

Oh, and speaking of not getting too excited…? Total-lack-of-spoiler alert: there ain’t a single lick of new footage in any of the below trailers. Thanks for nothing, Matthew Weiner. But, hey, at least they serve to remind you of how much you missed these characters.

Man oh man, March 25 seems like a lifetime away…

One of the big pieces of news to emerge about the return of “Mad Men” was that one of the episodes in the new season – not the season premiere, although it was the first episode the cast filmed upon coming back to work – was directed by Jon Hamm. While standing in a scrum during the cocktail party, I was privy to some of Hamm’s reflections on the experience.

“It was great, honestly. Part of it is that we’re all very close, and we’re all very good friends, and we’ve all worked together now for almost six years. So for me, it was very easy to just say, ‘Okay, that was great, let’s do it again, let’s try it a different way.’ Simple direction, not too complicated, and I didn’t try to overreach. I didn’t try to do too much. It wasn’t about camera moves. I didn’t try to be David Fincher. Part of it was, like, ‘Let’s see if I can do this and not run the train off the tracks.’”

Eventually, I managed to get in my one lonely question, which was to find out if, as director, he was in charge of the table read for the episode.

Hamm looked at me with equal parts good humor and incredulity. “Have you talked to Matt Weiner?” he asked, grinning. “Matt Weiner runs the table read.”

When I asked John Slattery how much of his excitement about the return of “Mad Men” was based directly on no longer having to be asked what he’d heard about when “Mad Men” was coming back, he laughed but couldn’t quantify a percentage.

“I’m just excited,” he said. “I just finished shooting last night, in fact.”

What, you mean all of Season Five?

“Yep,” he said, grinning. “And it went by in a blur, I’ll tell you that.”

When he first stepped back into the shoes of Roger Sterling, Slattery admitted that he had to find his groove. “I’m always off the first day back,” he admitted. “I mean, we were obviously gone for awhile this time, but I always feel, like, ‘How does all this work again?’ Plus, Jon Hamm was directing, so that was new. But he was great. Really, it was just good to be back. Plus, the scripts are better than they’ve ever been. I think so, anyway. And, yeah, I know that sounds like what you’re supposed to say, but we’ve all been commenting on it.”

Slattery described the “Mad Men” cast reads as amazing, but he said that even he and his cast members often find their hands tied by the secrecy surrounding the show’s scripts. “We – the cast – read these things like fans,” he said. “We can’t wait to get them, and once we do get them, we all sit around and read ‘em. If we have to, we’ll steal ‘em from whoever we can steal ‘em from – make-up, the hair department, some production head, whatever – just so we can sneak a read before we do our table read.”

No surprise here: Slattery can’t say a blessed thing about what we can expect in Season Five. Instead, I closed by asking him if, after learning that Roger was going to be writing a book, he was surprised as it became increasingly apparent that it was going to be a real snooze.

“Roger’s image of himself is certainly different from anyone else’s,” said Slattery, laughing. “But, you know, I think that’s what the whole show is about: all of these people have this image of themselves that they try to carry off, and in the end, it differs considerably from how everyone else sees them.”

Like I said, I didn’t get (or couldn’t manage) to ask Christina Hendricks a question that night. But, look, this shot was taken that night. Would you have been able to string two words together?

Rich Sommer is glad to be back at work, too. At the party, though, he was mostly just happy that AMC had finally deigned to release a few details about the return of the show.

“It’s just nice to have the news out,” he said. “They sent us a little thing a few days ago, saying, ‘This is what we’re going to be telling everyone, so you can talk about these things at the party.’ I was, like, ‘Oh, thank God…’ So now you know it’s going to be two hours on the first night back, you know Jon directed the first episode we filmed when we came back…”

But which of the plot points was Sommer most glad to be able to…

Sommer can’t resist a laugh. “Which of the plot points…?”

Sorry. Which of the talking points – God forbid Matthew Weiner should offer even the slightest bit of specifics as far as what we might see – was Sommer most glad to be able to finally discuss openly?

“Well, it has to be the return date,” said Sommer. “That’s nice because it’s the easiest to answer. I mean, I’ve had to lie straight to the face of people that I love when they asked, ‘So Jon directed the premiere?’ ‘Uh…yep.’ I have said, ‘Well, yeah, he directed the first episode,’ because it was the first episode that we shot this season. So I could say that without totally lying. I hate lying to people.”

So Sommer can’t say anything specific about the new season. Can he at least offer something general?

“For my money – and I know I’ve said this before, but I mean it – it’s the best season,” said Sommer. “I mean, I really, genuinely believe it. I wouldn’t say it otherwise. I don’t know how the hell Matt Weiner does it, but he has an amazing writing staff, and they just won’t let the other shoe drop. They just won’t. It’s great.”

Like Slattery, Sommer enjoys the experience of doing table reads with the rest of the “Mad Men” cast. Apparently, it’s just a big ol’ lovefest on that set.

“There’s giddiness at every table read,” said Sommer. “We are so fortunate to like each other. And I know a lot of shows say they do, but I go to shows and they don’t always. Some do. Some get along great. I know on ‘Modern Family’ they all love each other. But we really genuinely…there’s not a bad apple in the bunch, so it’s always very exciting to go to those table reads. And you know everyone’s gonna be there, because we don’t all work together all the time, so it’s the one time that we’re all together.”

As noted, Jom Hamm helmed the first episode filmed upon the cast’s return to work (though not, we cannot stress enough, the first episode of the season), and he likened the experience to when Slattery sat behind the camera a little while back.

“For me, one of the biggest hurdles to overcome with a director is how they communicate with actors, because they’re looking for something, and they have to find a way to kind of get it out of you, to pull it out of you,” said Sommer. “And sometimes the direction for that will be a little…surface, if that makes sense. They’re going, ‘I want you to say it like this.’ But Hamm and Slattery are both actors, so they’re talking about the emotion and the feeling of a scene, which I love. If they tell me a scene feels too closed, if it needs to be more open…I love that. I can do that. When it’s a line reading, though, it’s a little harder. When someone says, ‘I want you to say it this way,’ I don’t really know how to inform that. But as actors, they know how to talk to actors.”

“Also,” Sommer added with a grin, “they’ve both been in the business for, like, a hundred years.”

Knowing that he had to run off to chat with other journalists, there was only one more pressing – and, theoretically, easily answered – question left to ask of Sommer: has he booked another appearance on “The Soup” yet?

“Not yet,” he said. “We talk about it all the time, though. I’m good friends with Joel (McHale) and K.P. (Anderson), the producer, and they always say that whenever I want to come back, there’s a place. So with ‘Mad Men’ coming back, I can almost assure you that I’ll be on there.”

Awesome. Which reminds me: LeVar Burton’s always turning up with you guys on “The Soup.” When are you going to get him on your show?

“We’ve got to do it!” said Sommer, with legitimate enthusiasm. “I mean, that guy’s great. For the moment, though, don’t worry: he’s definitely an honorary Mad Man.”