Do we ever really want to see an 84-year-old Don Draper? According to "Mad Men" creator Matt Weiner, that's the plan.
While the popular AMC show is already known for periodic jumps into the not-so-distant 1960s future, the "Mad Men" series finale (slated to be in Season 7) already looks to be a biggie.
Weiner recently told Grantland.com, "I do know how the whole show ends…I always felt like it would be the experience of human life. And human life has a destination. It doesn't mean Don's gonna die. What I'm looking for, and how I hope to end the show, is like … It's 2011. Don Draper would be 84 right now. I want to leave the show in a place where you have an idea of what it meant and how it's related to you."
Here's the math: Season 5 of "Mad Men" is set to premiere on March 25. It was the year 1965 when we last saw Draper and Co., so to get to the present day there will need to be a lot of time travel over the course of the series' remaining three seasons.
But while "Mad Men's" possible four-decade forward into the future may sound like a big leap, it's not the first time a series has pulled a time jump on us.
One-Year Jump:
In 2010, ABC's "Brothers and Sisters" flashed forwarded one year, which meant we didn't have to deal with the immediate aftermath of the death of Robert (Rob Lowe.) Unfortunately, the series died soon after. Incidentally, the one-year jump has been a common one in recent years. "Bones" and "True Blood" both skipped ahead 365 days at one point and even the CBS sitcom "The King of Queens" gave us a one-year jump in its series-ending scene.
Two-Year Jump:
Season 2 of Jennifer Garner's "Alias" ended with her character, Sydney, knocked unconscious after a battle. Come Season 3 she woke up in Hong Kong and learned she'd been missing and presumed dead for two years. Hmmm, is that the timeframe in which she met Ben Affleck?
Three-Year Jump:
For the Showtime series' seventh season premiere, pot-dealing mom Nancy Botwin graduated from a prison cell to a halfway house and viewers lost three years in the process. Series creator Jenji Kohan told Entertainment Weekly that the three-year jump was " a huge decision," but explained, "We usually start the next minute [after the last season ends], and everyone yells at us because Shane's grown eight inches and it's technically only two hours later." Kohan also said producers weren't interested in exploring a prison storyline with Nancy, so they made the decision to skip forward in time instead.
Four-Year Jump:
This entire series was based on a ticking clock (each episode took place over the course of one hour, with the entire first season representing only one day), so a four-year jump between seasons 6 and 7 really moved things along. Sure, Chloe O'Brian's baby was suddenly 4 years old, but if "Growing Pains" and "Family Ties" can do it, why not this timely show? At least we missed the terrible twos.
Five-Year Jump:
Season 5 of the glossy ABC nighttime soap fast forwarded to five years after Season 4, with the glamorous Gaby Solis suddenly a frumpy hausfrau and those Scavo twins now old enough to drive like maniacs down Wisteria Lane. In a 2008 interview with Zap2It, show creator Marc Cherry messed with our inner clocks even more when he entertained the idea of going back in time to the days when dead series narrator Mary Alice Young was alive, a flashback tactic the series frequently used in subsequent seasons.
Other series' on the five year plan? "One Tree Hill," which skipped five years between seasons in 2008, (completely bypassing the college years!) and "Ghost Whisperer," which fast forwarded Melissa's newborn to a kindergartner in 2009. They grow up so fast!
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