TVSquad

As we all prepare for the holidays, including lots of football, turkey, the Macy's parade, the tree in Rockefeller Center and umpteen viewings of A Christmas Story (I can never get enough of Ralphie's quest for the Red Ryder carbine-action 200-shot range model air rifle), it's a good time to pause and reflect for a moment about all that I'm grateful for...on TV, that is.

I'd like to give thanks to...

Neil Patrick Harris
It's not just how awesome he is as Barney on How I Met Your Mother, although that's quite awesome. It's also Dr. Horrible which proved to me that he really should do a musical, 'cause he's great. NPH also made me laugh with his Old Spice commercials and was wonderful in an episode of Dinner: Impossible (from 2007, but I saw a rerun). Is there anything he can't do? Believe me, he is already legen -- wait for it -- dary.

I was reading AOL TV's "TV's 50 Hottest Hunks - Ever," and I was struck by two thoughts: "Ugh, can people really use the term, 'hunk' without shuddering?" and, "David Boreanaz? Seriously?"

I get it. Television is populated with pretty people and there are just some guys who are objectively hot (hellooooo, Jon Hamm). Generally speaking though, I'm not drawn to the Luke Perrys and Mario Lopezes of the world. I like quirky guys, and so while most of the dudes on this list aren't going to make it into the People magazine "Sexiest Man Alive" issue, they keep me tuning in every week (heh, that sounded totally dirty).

Follow me after the jump for the undercover hotties: ten guys on TV I secretly love.

If Don were ten years older and this was 1972 instead of 1962, we'd be saying that Don Draper is going through a mid-life crisis. After spending last week contemplating a new future with the jet set, or at least getting the offer of a hobo-existence without the worries of finances or fidelity, Don was compelled to look back before making a choice. That phone call at the end of The Jet Set was to the real Mrs. Draper.

Back home, meanwhile, Betty is again faced with having to grow up. Between her father's decline, Don's disappearance and her rebukes of Arthur and Glenn, Betts has been forced to be more than she's been in the past. Sally's latest stunt shouldn't be a shock considering that she's snuck a drink earlier this season and clearly idolizes everything her father does.

Sally blames Betty for Don's absence, and Betty realizes that pain she's been feeling is just as acute for her child and she does something human about it -- she gives Sally the boots to cushion the blow of the truth that Daddy may not be coming back.

Is there a new trend in the television landscape? Could be. At the TCA panel for Mad Men, creator Matt Weiner, revealed that the show is only going to run four more years.

That's right, the man has a plan. Each season of Mad Men will jump ahead approximately two years, so that when Don Draper's story comes to an end, it will be 1969. Can you imagine how radically the show will look by the end of the 1960s? With their attention to detail, it'll be amazing.

So what's the trend? It's setting an endpoint for a series. Battlestar Galactica did it, and Lost has as well. Traditionally, American television series run and run and run until the creators choose to end or the network calls it quits which usually corresponds to viewers having tuned out.

(S01E06)

"It was interesting...like watching a dog trying to play the piano." - ad guy Fred, about Peggy's great lipstick ideas.

Someone sent me an e-mail after last week's episode, and the person said that they didn't like Mad Men because "nothing ever happens." I disagree with this statement strongly, but I know what they mean. Nothing ever happens in the sense that there aren't any cliffhangers before each commercial, there aren't any explosions or murders, and there isn't some incredible event that pushes the show in another direction for the next episode. But to say that "nothing every happens" as a general statement about each episode is proof, I think, that we've been conditioned to expect all shows to be the same, and if they have a different pace then it's "boring" or "nothing ever happens."

If Mad Men is boring, then all shows should be this boring.

(S01E05)

"The story wasn't to my liking, but it shows an uncanny understanding of what other people like." - Roger

Am I a horrible, cynical person because I thought that Don was going to pull a gun out of his suitcase and shoot his step-brother? Oh, come on, you thought it too. The way they didn't show what he took out of his private, locked desk drawer, the way they set the scene in the hotel room with Adam talking to Don with his back turned, the way Don was waiting for just the right moment to reach into the briefcase. I thought the show was going to take a dark, Sopranos-like turn.