The advertising-agency drama returns for its fifth season next week. Already lost the plot? Will Dean, author of the definitive book on the show, brings you up to speed

This uneven crime caper is full of plot-holes and clichés, but it's redeemed by a perky script, Alan Alda's convincingly shady banker Arthur Shaw, and a lovely performance from Matthew Broderick as a disgraced financier.

Will you be frying tonight? Britney, Kim Kardashian and her coven and K$sha (her keyboard clumsiness, not mine) will be. I'm not talking about the oil-based cooking technique. Instead, I refer to the "vocal fry", a non-fattening and newly identified way of speaking that is, apparently, big with young women in the US.

The son of the murdered US Senator Bobby Kennedy is facing criminal charges after a confrontation with two nurses as he tried to take his newborn baby for fresh air, his lawyer said yesterday.

The sad woman in the attic

Detroit Pistons shooting guard Ben Gordon has confirmed his intention to play for Great Britain at the Olympics.

Ben Gazzara managed a career that embraced critically acclaimed independent and art-house films, popular movies, television and stage. He may be best known for three searing performances in John Cassavetes films but also worked with directors such as Otto Preminger, Spike Lee, the Coens and Lars von Trier. He claimed that youthful idealism made him turn down a lot of roles but in later years he refused few jobs, simply to maintain a comfortable lifestyle. In such a prolific career his ability to make the smallest gesture register means he is often better than the films he is in.

A snowstorm with a ferocity more familiar in February than October hit the American north-east over the weekend, knocking out power to 2.7 million, affecting air and road travel and dumping more than two feet of snow in some areas. Officials warned that it could be days before many see electricity restored.

A Formula One race will be held in 2013 along the Hudson River just minutes from New York City, a New Jersey official said yesterday.

The link between income disparities and financial crises is more than just a coincidence

The former New York governor Eliot Spitzer and Slate online magazine are being sued by two ex-insurance executives who claim they were defamed in a column by Mr Spitzer.

The flight

Easyjet.com launches its spring schedule this week. Book now to get low fares to some 300 destinations, for departures from 25-March to 24 June 2012.

The "Stacey's Mom" hitmakers will have to work hard, this late in the day, to shake off the perception of being essentially a poor man's Weezer.