Mad Men aficionados have been left dismayed by the newly revamped 4K version of the show after spotting some glaring errors in the episodes.
The new remaster of the advertising wheelers and dealers on 1960s Madison Avenue only hit screens on Monday, but fans of the show have already taken to social media to point out a series of missteps.
Chief among these was in an infamous Sterling Cooper scene, in which John Slattery’s forever-slick Roger Sterling does one of his most out-of-character things on the show: vomits all over the office carpet.
Albeit, it was also the most in-character thing on the show that he did so while day drunk and greeting clients on a full stomach of oysters.
But the yellow projectile vomit has now had its scene stolen by a pair of crouching crew members spotted at the edge of the screen in the new 4K version. Presumably, they’re the vomit machine operators.
That wasn’t the only sloppy job found on the new edit, as the episodes had also been put onto the streamer in the wrong order and with incorrect titles.
This ninth episode in the first season, Red in the Face, was not actually on the HBO Max platform under that title. But it’s now understood that this blunder has been rectified on the US streaming service.
Viewers have also taken to social media to report period anachronisms as a result of the mis-editing, with one scene in which SIM cards can be seen for sale. (These weren’t invented until the 1990s.)
The first tweet has been viewed over 9million times on X, prompting plenty of online chatter.
The mistakes have left fans on social media outraged at what was dubbed by some as ‘lazy carelessness’.
But others have suggested there might be an ulterior motive to the mistake, with some wondering whether the editing oopsy was on purpose.
Shannon tweeted: ‘This isn’t an error, this is promo for HBO Max. Get the people talking,’ while Gyda Ragnarsdottir agreed, writing: ‘They knew exactly what they were doing. Just look at how everyone is talking about “the new 4K transfer of Mad Men on HBO”.’
@goodthink1984 similarly questioned: ‘Could this be intentional? Probably the best way to make a show everyone has already seen and discussed to death go viral.’
@webjame dubbed it ‘completely intentional’, adding: ‘Very costly to redo the post production in 4k and also it is obviously getting further engagement.’
However, it seems this might be a case of cock-up over conspiracy theory, as it has been reported that the errors were down to a simple case of sending over the wrong files to be uploaded to the streamer.
The Hollywood Reporter has reported that HBO Max was sent the wrong 4K files, but these are now in the process of being swapped out on the service.
Metro contacted Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns HBO Max, for comment.
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