Mad Men

Alexis Bledel and Vincent Kartheiser, whose characters had an illicit affair in the AMC series "Mad Men," are engaged. This will be the first marriage for Bledel, 31, and Kartheiser, 33. People and Us Weekly confirmed the news, and Bledel's pal told Us Weekly that "they couldn't be happier. " "Vincent proposed a few weeks ago. She's been wearing her ring. It's huge!" PHOTOS: 'Mad Men' Season 6 premiere Bledel, who starred in the beloved "Gilmore Girls" series, dated costar Milo Ventimiglia for three years before splitting in 2006.

Between Beyonce's show-stopping halftime performance at Super Bowl XLVII and “Downton Abbey,” Sunday night was all about the ladies - single or otherwise. As I noted last week, the female characters have taken center stage this season on “Downton Abbey” in a way that's somewhat surprising, with scorned bride Edith now a budding feminist, Isobel an unapologetic advocate for “fallen women,” and Daisy poised to become a trailblazing lady farmer. At the same time, two of the most prominent men of the manor, Carson and Lord Grantham, are turning into living anachronisms before our very eyes.

PARK CITY, Utah -- In "Sweetwater," which is set for its world premiere Thursday night at the Sundance Film Festival, January Jones plays an avenging fallen angel of sorts, a former prostitute who strikes out for revenge against the men who killed her husband on the barren plains of the frontier of late 1800s New Mexico. Written and directed by twin brothers Logan and Noah Miller, the film finds Jones' character entangled in a triangulated collision course with an oddball lawman played by Ed Harris and a crooked clergyman played by Jason Isaacs.

April may be a little less cruel this year for "Mad Men" fans as the highly acclaimed period drama is set to return for its sixth season Sunday, April 7. Creator and executive producer Matt Weiner made the announcement to a handful of journalists Tuesday afternoon with the information embargoed until Wednesday morning. Fans looking for hints about where the AMC show's penultimate 13 episodes may be headed will be disappointed, however. Weiner, who said he was in the middle of writing this season's eighth episode, was characteristically tight-lipped about details.

The third season premiere of "Downton Abbey" was heralded by the sort of media blitz more in line with the Summer Olympics or a new Robert Downey Jr. franchise than anything appearing on PBS' "Masterpiece. " The public television network hosted a red-carpet preview screening for PBS SoCal members aboard the Queen Mary, for mercy's sake. And merchandising for "Downton" threatens to out-deluge that for "The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey," with books and jewelry, mugs and calendars, and T-shirts identifying themselves with one of the Crawley sisters or demanding that authorities "Free John Bates.

Just in time for the end of the world, AMC has quite a surprise for fans of "The Walking Dead. " The megahit series has been renewed for a fourth season but will continue without show runner Glen Mazzara, making the show's top creative post about as safe a place as the world after a zombie apocalypse. In a statement Friday announcing the show's return - all but a foregone conclusion, given its record-setting ratings - AMC also dropped the bombshell that Mazzara would no longer be involved with the series beyond the current season, which returns to the network in February.

Even by the gruesome standards of AMC's zombie megahit "The Walking Dead," the death of Lori Grimes, the heavily pregnant wife of protagonist Rick Grimes, was unusually brutal : a crude prison-floor C-section followed by a bullet to the head dispatched by her young son, Carl. Yet many viewers greeted the development not with despair or horror but with a sadistic kind of glee, flocking to Twitter, Facebook and online comment threads to post heartwarming eulogies like this one: "Lori left The Walking Dead the same way she came in. With her pants off. " The incongruous reaction to Lori's demise in the Nov. 4 episode  fits in with a broader trend at AMC, where unpopular first wives have become a network hallmark in the same way incest plot lines and gratuitous female nudity have at HBO. In addition to Lori, there's Betty, the long-suffering spouse (and now ex)

Daniel Mendelsohn is the prizewinning writer and cultural critic whose latest book, "Waiting for the Barbarians," is newly published by the New York Review of Books. Mendelsohn comes to the ALOUD series  series at the Los Angeles Central Library on Thursday, where he'll be in conversation with Jonathan Lethem. He answered our questions about his essay collection and the state of criticism today via email. The criticism in your book covers both high culture (19th century German literature)

Anyone who has caught a glimpse of the presidential candidates' wives on the campaign trail knows that safe, boxy suits are not in the fashion vocabulary of either the Democratic first lady or the Republican who aspires to replace her. The appearance of Michelle Obama and Ann Romney in similarly full-skirted dresses at the third and final presidential debate prompted two editors at the Atlantic to launch into an online dialogue pondering the abundance...

BEIJING - Just after Memorial Day 1966 on the TV drama "Mad Men," suave Manhattan ad man Don Draper is serenaded at his 40th birthday party by his 26-year-old sex kitten of a second wife, Megan. She prances suggestively around their luxe high-rise apartment in a black chiffon mini-dress, delivering a sensual rendition of the French song "Zou Bisou Bisou" while his office colleagues gape, puff on Lucky Strikes and sip cocktails. That very same month in China, in real life, things were headed in a much less bourgeois direction.