The Mad Men Rollout on HBO Max Might Make Fans Vomit

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 SCDP family. So it’s a shame that someone seems to have horribly botched its splashy HBO Max re-release in 4K 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 on streaming for well over a decade. Some users theorize that post-production edits seem to be messed up. Before you run to your TV to check, don’t worry: The lawnmower foot episode looks intact, attempted dismemberment aside.

But the screw-ups 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’s relationship with his brother Adam Whitman, is the one labeled as “Red in the Face.” We’ve reached out to HBO Max, Lionsgate Television, and showrunner Matthew Weiner about these errors and hope to get answers. The show landed on HBO Max yesterday and as of this morning, the platform has not corrected the errors or pulled the show. 

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 re-released in another only for the carefully cropped 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 sub-par 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 Draper’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 in the service of nothing we didn’t get before.

The stinging news is that this 4K version is the one that’s on HBO Max: 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.