After the first season of Mad Men ­– or maybe it was the second – Jon Hamm made a series of appearances on the NBC show 30 Rock. His character there, as opposed to Don Draper, was a well intentioned, but woefully clumsy and ill informed doctor. After dating Liz Lemon for a time, subsequent to her wrangling his attention, Dr. Drew is revealed to be some sort of beautiful, cloistered man incapable of concocting even the most basic dinner. Liz’s response to all of this is to conclude that being as stunningly handsome as the good doctor was, he was never privy to anyone dashing his hopes with reality.

Apart from the fact that watching Dr. Drew play tennis was hilarious, the discussion that the two characters eventually have about ‘the bubble’ – the term Liz Lemon dubs this weird world that Dr. Drew lives in – serve to dissolve the relationship. It’s concluded that the doctor would like to remain in his unthreatening world, although he wants Liz to join him. But as the two part ways for good, even the doctor’s exit – executed poorly on a motorcycle – seems kinda funny. It was an appropriate character for Hamm to play: there aren’t too many dudes as blindingly well put together. But some of the same kinda of detachment from reality has to haunt Hamm’s character on Mad Men as well.

The first episode of season three finds Don Draper on the road to meet with the folks at London Fog, who, oddly enough, are located in Baltimore. But while in transit Draper, who is here accompanied by Salvatore Romano, the art director at the Sterling Cooper Advertising Agency, the two are accosted by an eager stewardess in an all too unlikely ploy to get some action. It’s not that what transpires is beyond the realm of possibility, but due to the Draper/Hamm mystique, the occurrence is one that’s removed from all but a very select few folks on the face of the earth.

Draper might well be the protagonist of Mad Men, but that doesn’t make his character instantly likeable. In fact, it seems as if the show’s writers are undertaking steps to make him seem monstrous – cheating on his wife and the like. But to soften all of that, the emotional baggage that Draper carries around has begun to get unpacked a bit over the last season and in this first episode. The opening scenes find Draper recalling his own birth as his wife lays upstairs ready to burst with child number three.

His flashback adds a layer of depth to a character that while ever deepening, still seems like a pretty superficial dude, concerned more with the flesh and cash flow than some familial matters. The brief foray into his past hasn’t magically made Draper the most human character in the series as of yet, but it seems that more time is going to be dedicated to such an endeavor. But even if it’s not and he continues to have more skirt thrown his way than any normal guy’d be able to imagine, the RJD2 composed theme music might be enough to keep folks coming back.