It’s not every TV drama that can claim an Oscar-winning screenwriter as a new recruit to its staff, particularly not as it prepares to wind down. But then, not every TV drama is Mad Men, which has just scored Chinatown’s Robert Towne.
According to Variety, Towne will be serving as a consulting producer on the final season of the show, which will be split between two seven-episode batches in Spring 2014 and 2015. It would seem that US cable channel AMC is happy with the boost in ratings garnered by Breaking Bad’s final season split, and wants to make sure its original high calibre drama goes out with a similar bang (add your own Don Draper-inspired pun here, please).
Towne, whose CV also includes Oscar nominations for Shampoo, The Last Detail and Greystoke, is not the only cinematic veteran joining head writer Matthew Weiner’s team – Nine To Five co-writer Patricia Resnick will also be working as a consulting producer.
It’s not like the Emmy-winning keyboard-mashers behind the show already in place really need the help, but it’s a testament to their continuing quality that Oscar-calibre writers would want to climb aboard the juggernaut. We can't wait to see the result.