Mad Men's second season premiere will not go unnoticed, if the media has anything to say about it. "The most prestigious show of 2007," proclaims the Los Angeles Times. "If this is the future of TV, the future's looking good," quips USA Today.

Favorable reviews of the first two episodes abound. The New York Times says the drama is "a sleek, hard-boiled drama with a soft satirical core" and gives some perspective on how the show "distills the moment in the American century when the buoyant certainty that came with winning a war and running the world was beginning to crack." The San Francisco Chronicle notes that the episodes reaffirm the show's "place in the upper echelon of television dramas," while making for "compelling television of the smartest (and possibly most subversive) kind."

Also weighing in is Variety, characterizing Don and Betty's interaction as an exploration of the "shifting definition of American masculinity -- a tension [Jon] Hamm conveys almost effortlessly." Mad Men is "every bit as inspired as you've heard. And getting better all the time," according to The Hollywood Reporter, which also says that Matthew Weiner has "subtly raised his game" in Season 2 in the face of massive expectations. In a lengthy review, Time magazine compliments the "subtle, deliberately paced" drama for its "wider sense of history," which makes it "great TV." Mad Men can do this because "the changes in society serve to illustrate the characters, not the other way around." In the end, the article concludes, "we're nostalgic for people," not "fashions or fads or furniture," and that "is what Mad Men gives us. Not the fiery explosions of pop history, but the throbbing, persistent ache of time."