Mad Men‘s season #7 is occuring in 1969, and once again Don Draper‘s hair style hasn’t changed a bit since the very beginning (i.e., 1961 or thereabouts). Let me make something clear: every single American male who had any give-and-take dealings with the upheavals of the ’60s grew his hair out to some degree between ’61 and ’69. At least slightly. Even the Draper types (neurotic, alcohol issues, plugged-up) at least grew their sideburns a bit and allowed their hair to lengthen a tad. The 1960s witnessed the most dramatic hair changes of the 20th Century, and as such were metaphors for guys easing up on their machismo posturings. The pressure to loosen up and “conform” was considerable. And yet Matthew Weiner steadfastly refuses to let Draper grow his sideburns just a bit. I’ve been tolerating this crap ever since the show went through 1965 (i.e., the first year that button-down business guys began to see their barber less often) but now it’s getting weird.

Brian Lowry‘s Variety review of the first episode of the next-to-last (i.e., “bifurcated”) Mad Men season says the following: (a) “More indifferently paced than most [and] perhaps too groovy and scattered for its own good…ought to be more tantalizing”; (b) Sterling Cooper’s new Los Angeles branch “figures prominently,” (c) Don Draper is “still digging through the emotional baggage from the heavy drinking and extramarital affair that dominated last season” and (d) his marriage to Megan (Jessica Pare) may be toast.