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HBO Max is facing major heat from Mad Men fans over its botched remastering of the beloved drama.
The seven-season Emmy-winning drama, starring Jon Hamm as Don Draper, an alpha male creative director at a New York City advertising firm, originally aired on AMC from 2007 to 2015. Last month, however, HBO Max’s parent company, Warner Bros., announced it had acquired the rights from Lionsgate Television to stream it for the first time.
“Mad Men is a great addition to the HBO Max library of iconic content,” said Royce Battleman, EVP of global content acquisitions at Warner Bros. Discovery said at the time. “We are thrilled that HBO Max will provide fans the opportunity to enjoy the series in a fresh way with an enhanced 4K viewing experience.”
Released Monday on the streaming platform, 10 years after the show’s conclusion, the revamped iteration has left eager viewers appalled by its numerous editing errors.
In an early scene from season one’s episode seven, Roger Sterling (John Slattery), a senior partner and accounts executive at a rival ad agency, vomits on the floor of the office after eating too many oysters. Several fans have pointed out that just behind Slattery, two crew members manning the vomit machine can be seen crouching in the background.
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HBO Max has released a remastered ‘Mad Men,’ starring Jon Hamm, 10 years after the series ended (AMC)
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(L-R) Jon Hamm, John Slattery, Jared Harris and Robert Morse in ‘Mad Men’ (AMC)
“The new 4K transfer of mad men on HBO somehow does not have any of the post-production edits added in, which means you get stuff like this where you can see the crew member manning the puke machine after Roger has too many oysters lmao,” one said on X.
Meanwhile, a Reddit user noticed that “several episodes in the first season (at least) are also mislabeled and out of order.”
“Terrible roll out by HBO,” they wrote.
“I don’t understand, how do you even f*** this up?” another questioned.
“I literally thought this was a joke when I was seeing it posted on BlueSky, oh my god what are we even f***ing doing here with remasters anymore?!” a third added.
“It’s what happens when you reduce teams to skeleton crews and rely on batching tools + AI to complete complex tasks,” another posited. “No one is around the verify that work, it just gets churned out and shoved out the door.”
According to Vulture, a source familiar with the problem said that HBO Max had received incorrect files from Lionsgate Television. The latter is currently working on getting the right files to HBO Max so that the episodes will be corrected as soon as possible, the outlet reported.
The Independent has contacted HBO Max and Lionsgate Television for additional comment.
At its peak, Mad Men earned four consecutive Emmy awards for Best Drama. It also earned Hamm eight Emmy nominations for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. He went on to win the trophy in 2015 for his final season as Draper.