This time last summer, we were readying ourselves for the premiere of Season 4 of Mad Men. Our biggest worry? Perfecting our Old-Fashioned recipe before having people over to watch it on Sunday night. This year, thanks to some intense and drawn out negotiations between Matthew Weiner and the powers that be, we’ve got to settle for the news that filming on Season 5 begins on August 8 and we won’t be seeing any new episodes until March of next year.

This creates a few interesting questions: How will producers deal with January Jones’s pregnancy on-screen? (She isn’t due until November.) Will Jon Hamm, who recently signed on to guest star in five episodes of David Cross’s British comedy The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, find it difficult juggling the two gigs (especially given that he’s planning to make his directorial debut with the season premiere)? And perhaps, most importantly, how many of our predictions for Season 5 will come true, given the production delays?

It doesn’t feel like summer without new episodes of Mad Men on the horizon, and we’re all pretty depressed about it. Presumably sensing this, star Jon Hamm has given us a tidbit of interesting information about the show’s eventual season premiere: he’ll be directing it himself.

Hamm will follow in the footsteps of co-star John Slattery, who helmed two episodes last season (“I watched Slattery do it, and he handled it with such grace and ability and ease,” Hamm told TV Line, adding, “I figured if he can do it, shit, I can do it too”). But if he warms to the experience, he could very well be the next in a long line of television stars who used their own shows as a film school, learning the directorial ropes before tackling feature film projects. (Some who you’d think would make this list, by the way, actually directed for their shows after directing films; Zach Braff and John Krasinski, for example). Few have yielded cinematic masterpieces, but some have made some interesting pictures; after the jump, take a look at our ten TV-actors-turned-TV-directors-turned-filmmakers.

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1. We may have to wait until next year for the new season of Mad Men, but at least we’ll have an added enticement: Jon Hamm is set to direct the premiere. “I watched [John] Slattery do it, and he handled it with such grace and ability and ease… I figured if he can do it, shit, I can do it too,” Hamm joked. [via TVLine]

2. Courtney Love, who recently had a lot to say about heroin, sex, and Kurt Cobain’s anatomy, is being sued for libel by her former lawyer. Yes, it involves Twitter. [via The Wrap]

3. Speaking of substance abuse, Amy Winehouse is back in rehab — and she stopped to buy a mini-bottle of vodka on the way. [via Daily Mail]

4. Reviews are in for The Hangover Part II, which opened yesterday, and they’re not looking good. The sequel currently has a 46 out of 100 rating on Metacritic and a 32 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Eric Hynes at the Village Voice explains why it’s such a failure: “What’s surprising about Roman Numeral Two is how thoroughly unfunny it is. It’s so committed to being exactly what we expect it to be, and to thrusting harder against the envelope of bad taste, that it fails in this most basic sense.”

5. In case you were wondering, yes, Beyoncé‘s voice really is that good, even when Jay-Z captures her rehearsing in her dressing room on his iPhone. [via Gawker]

Bonus link: Guardian Music’s Power 100

If you’ve ever fantasized about Jon Hamm repeating the words “Spread my cheeks” in the heat of passion, have we got a video for you. Funny or Die has posted a reel of outtakes from Bridesmaids, and it’s so nasty you have to enter your date of birth to watch it. For those who have and haven’t seen the movie alike, Hamm and Kristen Wiig’s awkwardly athletic sex scene, Melissa McCarthy’s dirty mouth, and all the bodily excretion/noxious odor jokes are a dose of pure, mid-week joy. Watch the clip after the jump.

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1. Last night, after a whopping 122 million votes had been tallied (a new record for American Idol), 17-year-old country singer Scotty McCreery, who quite frankly reminds us of Howdy Doody, was named the winner of season 10. [via People]

2. According to TMZ, British import Cheryl Cole has been replaced as a judge on X-Factor by Nicole Scherzinger, formerly of the Pussycat Dolls. The Daily Mail claims that it’s because of Cole’s lack of chemistry with Paula Abdul and producers’ fears that Americans wouldn’t be able to understand her accent.

3. In the latest installment of Between Two Ferns with Zach Galifiankis, guest Will Ferrell feeds his host cherries, Jon Hamm makes a cameo, and there’s an unfortunate incident involving a monkey’s genitals. Sound good to you? Watch it here.

4. The Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum has just announced the winners of the 2011 National Design Awards. View the full list here.

5. Bill Nighy has joined Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale, Bryan Cranston, and Jessica Biel in the cast of Len Wiseman’s Total Recall reboot, which drops the Martian storyline from the 1990 original. He’ll be playing Quatto (“Kuato” in the Arnold Schwarzenegger version), “the enigmatic and charming” leader of the resistance. [via TotalFilm]

Bonus link: Where in the World Are Exiled Leaders?

Everyone we know has a love/hate relationship with Saturday Night Live. We moan that the comedians are not as good as they once were and that the writing is toothless and safe, but we still watch every weekend, cheer for our favorite hosts, and delight in dissecting the good from the bad. Now that the 36th season of SNL has officially drawn to a close, it’s time to take a look back at the best skits from this season to give ourselves a few more cheap laughs to hold us over until the fall. Click through to see our highly subjective list — unlike some people we know, we hate What Up With That? and swoon for musical numbers of almost any kind, so be prepared — and feel free to chime in in the comments to let us know which of your favorites of this season we’ve missed!

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Last night’s Saturday Night Live surprised us with something we hadn’t known we’d always been missing — the return of the classic short “The Ambiguously Gay Duo.” Only this time, with the help of a flesh ray, Ace, Gary and the gang were transformed into human form. Jimmy Fallon and Jon Hamm appeared as Ace and Gary, and the villains revealed themselves to be Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert (who originally voiced Ace and Gary) along with host Ed Helms. Just like the Ambiguously Gay spots of yore, last night’s half-cartoon, half-live action version was cheap, listless, and mildly offensive. But funny! Watch the video after the jump.

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1. AMC and Matthew Weiner have reached a deal to make at least two more seasons of Mad Men. “I called my agents to thank them, my wife, and Jon Hamm — in that order,” he told Vulture. “Jon Hamm wasn’t there. I left two messages. Then I called the rest of the cast.”

2. Sarah Silverman will make a guest appearance on The Good Wife in what sounds like a serious role; she’ll be playing Stephanie, a woman who owns a controversial website that sets up affairs for married users. [via Perez]

3. Stephen King and John Mellencamp are collaborating on “a riveting Southern gothic musical” called Ghost Brothers of Darkland County, which make its debut in Atlanta next April. [via AP]

4. MTV is working on a pilot for a new series based on the controversial documentary Catfish with the same creative team who made the film; while nothing is official yet, the show will “likely focus on social network users who purposely misidentify themselves and the repercussions that occur.” [via Variety]

5. Struggling company American Apparel has released its latest financial report which reveals that it lost $86 million in 2010; meanwhile Dov Charney says the chances of bankruptcy are “not even a 1-in-1,000 chance.” Our advice: stock up on those deep v-neck t-shirts while you still can. [via Gawker]

Bonus link: British Celebs (and Some American Ones!) Who Look Like Houses

When we first heard about Bridesmaids, a female ensemble comedy directed by Paul Feig and produced by Judd Apatow, we had high hopes in spite of the rather unoriginal sounding premise; Kristen Wiig (who co-wrote the film) plays a single woman whose best friend (Maya Rudolph) asks her to be the Maid of Honor in her upcoming wedding. Rose Byrne, Melissa McCarthy, Wendi McLendon-Covey, and Ellie Kemper fill out the remaining female half of the wedding party. Judging from the trailer, this isn’t going to be anything groundbreaking, but it will elicit a few laughs (although enough with the single lady jokes!), and beats the hell out of other recent attempts to appeal to the 30-something female market — like Bride Wars or either of the Sex and the City movies. Plus, there’s a brief cameo by Jon Hamm and a glimpse of puppies in bow ties! Take a look and let us know what you think.

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1. Interesting fact: only 13 percent of Wikipedia’s contributors are women, reports the New York Times. The Wikimedia Foundation vows to increase the number of women contributors to 24 percent by 2015.

2. After taking home top honors at last night’s SAG Awards, The King’s Speech is now considered the front-runner for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. [via Vulture]

3. Meet your next Superman: British actor Henry Cavill — who was previously cast as the Man of Steel in a JJ Abrams-scripted version of the film — will star in Zack Snyder’s franchise reboot. We were hoping for Jon Hamm. How about you? [via Slashfilm]

4. Bright Eyes’ forthcoming album The People’s Key — which comes out on February 15th — is now streaming in full over on NPR where they’re calling it “a career-defining work of art.”

5. We’re curious what Mayor Bloomberg thinks of this week’s Valentine’s Day-themed cover of the New Yorker, a drawing called Bloom in Love by Barry Blitt. Also worth checking out from a few issues back:Excerpts from Bloomberg’s snow diaries, a humor piece by John Kenney.

Bonus link: PS22 Chorus Covers Ariel Pink