If you were about to fire up the shiny new 4K version of Mad Men on HBO Max, maybe hold off. Turns out the upgrade might have accidentally peeled back some movie magic you were never meant to see.
The hiccup with the new 4K
Mad Men ended in 2015 after seven seasons and 92 episodes, spanning the 1960s into 1970 with Jon Hamm as Don Draper, the mercurial creative director at the Sterling Cooper ad agency on Manhattan’s Madison Avenue. A fresh 4K transfer just hit HBO Max so fans could revisit the show in higher fidelity. The problem: at least some of the post-production cleanups that hide gear and crew appear to be missing in this version.
How do we know? X user @bigrackspart7 (johnny) spotted a production crew member in plain view during the infamous Roger Sterling oyster binge aftermath — as in, you can literally see the person running the puke machine. Yes, that username rules. The post went up on December 2, 2025, and they even checked the original cut to confirm the crew member is not supposed to be visible.
"The new 4K transfer of Mad Men on HBO somehow does not have any of the post-production edits added in, which means you get stuff like this where you can see the crew member manning the puke machine after Roger has too many oysters lmao"
What to know right now
- The show’s new 4K transfer is streaming on HBO Max.
- Viewers have caught what looks like missing post-production fixes — the kind that normally erase crew, rigs, and other on-set artifacts.
- Proof: a visible crew member operating a vomit rig in Roger Sterling’s oyster scene.
- The issue was flagged by X user @bigrackspart7 (johnny) on December 2, 2025, after comparing the 4K stream to the original version.
- If clean presentation matters to you, you might want to stick with your Blu-rays or DVDs until this gets patched.
A quick refresher on the show itself
Mad Men is a period drama set in the 1960s that follows ad executives navigating work, marriage, ambition, and shifting cultural norms — with Don Draper (Jon Hamm) at the center as Sterling Cooper’s creative director. The ensemble is stacked: Elisabeth Moss, John Slattery, Vincent Kartheiser, Alison Brie, January Jones, Christina Hendricks, Robert Morse, Bryan Batt, Michael Gladis, Aaron Staton, Rich Sommer, Maggie Siff, Jared Harris, Kiernan Shipka, Jessica Pare, Christopher Stanley, Jay R. Ferguson, Kevin Rahm, Ben Feldman, and Mason Vale Cotton.
So should you stream the 4K?
If you’re new to the show or mid-rewatch and don’t want to be distracted by a rogue puke-machine operator getting his unexpected close-up, keep your discs handy for now. I love a good upgrade, but this one looks like someone toggled off the cleanup layer on export. Here’s hoping it gets fixed fast.