Mad Men Might End After Six Seasons, Or It Might Not

All you need to do is look at Lost to know that, sometimes, setting an end date for a TV show can be the best thing to happen to it. Creators of many high-brow TV shows, from Seinfeld to The Sopranos, have been able to take the show out on their own terms, and it's not surprising at all to hear that Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner. Still, the producer and writer sent serious shockwaves through the Internet this week when he said a a broadcaster convention that he couldn't see Mad Men running beyond six seasons. And as it turns out, that may not even be true.

The Los Angeles Times gave the AMC folks an opportunity for damage controls, and they even had a sense of humor about it:

"No one wants to see Don Draper wearing a leisure suit. We trust Matthew's vision and that he knows where to take the show. But with that said, M*A*S*H figured how to stretch the Korean War for more than a decade, so stay tuned! "

If Mad Men is truly destined to last only six seasons, that means we're halfway through, a devastating thought to anyone who can't get enough Draper. Then again, no show is worth watching once its run out of ideas. As we've done every time Mad Men made us tear our hair out (Grandpa Gene? Really?) we're just going to have to trust Weiner on whatever he wants to do with this one.