The show’s new 4K release is riddled with errors.
Photo-Illustration: Vulture, HBO Max
This story has been updated with new reporting.
No show of the Peak TV era developed the reputation Mad Men did for attention to detail. Every week, fans combed the show’s production design for clues that could illuminate the thinking of Don, Peggy, and the rest of the extended Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce family. So it’s a shame that the show’s splashy 4K rerelease on HBO Max was horribly botched yesterday.
The rewatchers who checked back in with the show as soon as it hit HBO Max on December 1 noticed problems immediately. In the famous season-one episode that ends with Roger Sterling drunkenly puking up oysters all over the office floor in front of prospective clients, HBO Max’s 4K version clearly shows a set technician holding a hose to simulate the vomit in the side of the frame — an error that wasn’t in-frame in the television release, on the Mad Men DVD or Blu-ray, or the HD digital release that’s been streaming for well over a decade. Some users theorize that postproduction edits seem to be messed up. Before you run to your TV to check, don’t worry — the lawn-mower–foot episode looks intact, attempted dismemberment aside.
But the screwups don’t end there. That same oyster-vomit episode, “Red in the Face,” was also mislabeled on HBO Max. It’s currently listed as another season-one episode, “Babylon.” And another episode from the first season, “5G”, which focuses on Don Draper’s relationship with his brother, Adam Whitman, is the one labeled as “Red in the Face.” The show landed on HBO Max yesterday, and as of this morning, the platform has not corrected the errors or pulled the show.
How did this happen? Apparently, this wasn’t actually HBO Max’s fault — the streamer received incorrect files from Lionsgate Television, a source familiar with the exchange tells Vulture. Lionsgate is now in the process of getting HBO Max the correct files, and the episodes will be updated as soon as possible.
There’s something ironic about Mad Men joining the ranks of classic shows like Gilmore Girls, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and The Wire — beloved titles made for one format and then rereleased in another only for the carefully removed vomit machines, boom mics, and other warts to show. For plenty of shows, this sort of thing is probably fine and maybe even a little funny. But Mad Men’s whole deal was that it was, in our own words, “built to last.” In many ways, the details were the show, and interrupting its office-life fantasies with a subpar presentation is a colossal self-own on the part of the entities distributing it. Mad Men’s original HD presentation, the one we’ve all been watching for 15 years, still looks amazing, and its relevant details, like the books on Don’s shelf, were always more than legible in the frame. The 4K version’s errors and lack of care yank the viewer out of the story and yield nothing new in return.
The stinging news, until HBO Max and Lionsgate fix it, is that this 4K version is the only one that’s on HBO Max across its subscription tiers; it’s the one that plays even if you’re not watching on a 4K TV. If you care about watching Mad Men, we advise you to stick to your DVDs, Blu-rays, or Philo, which is also carrying the show right now.
