Good news for all the chain-smoking, emotionally inaccessible men and the girls who love 'em: AMC just announced a return date for the third season of Mad Men! There's just one problem.

Yup, you guessed it: Lionsgate has yet to strike a deal with Mad Men mastermind Matthew Weiner to come back (despite over four months of negotiating). Still, that didn't stop AMC president Charles Collier from letting the press at TCA know today that new episodes of the series would premiere this summer. Is the network playing hardball with Weiner by announcing a start date, figuring it will spur him toward a deal? Or does Collier have inside information on the negotiations, which will reward Weiner with a four-season contract, an outdoor campaign that isn't totally vague and listless, and a clause that allows him to take home Joan Holloway's clingy costumes (about that, the less said the better)?

• AMC panel... [THR]

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