“Mad Men” returns to the air on April 7th with a two hour premiere. It’s not a moment too soon. And the good news is, Jon Hamm directs the second episode (or the third, depending on how you look at it) on April 14th. John Slattery, who deserved an Emmy for Best Supporting Actor last season, also directs two episodes coming up. What do we know? Not much except that two hour opener is set at least partially in Hawaii, where Don and Megan go on a vacation. Megan remains Mrs. Don Draper at least for now. Season 6 is the second to last for “Mad Men” which will conclude, it seems, at the end of the 60s, which is just perfect. Then Jon Hamm goes off to become a movie star. How many episodes for January Jones this season after almost nothing last go round? Also unknown. Will Pete and Peggy ever see their child? Will there be a plot for the whole season this time? And if it’s 1967 when we return, will someone be listening to “Sgt. Pepper”? Questions!

The second part of Oprah Winfrey’s big interview with Lance Armstrong on Friday night was a bust. The interview produced only 1.8 million viewers at 9pm and another 620,000 viewers in its rebroadcast at 11:30pm. For OWN, Oprah’s struggling network, that’s all very good. But it’s not great, not by a long shot.

Remember, the first part on Thursday night did 3.2 million at 9pm, and another 1.2 million in the second broadcast that night. The second part produced very little in the way of news on Friday except for Armstrong’s telling of how he admitted his lies to his 13 year old son. Otherwise, we are still clueless about how and why he doped, when he actually started, anything about his cancer, his marriage, who knew about the doping and when, and how he manipulated his way into the celebrity world.

It’s not that I don’t want OWN to do well. I do. Sure, why not? But I’ve learned more about how TV ratings press releases are worded because of Oprah and Lance than anything actually about Lance Armstrong. You have to interpret the press releases’ crazy rationales and declarations of faux success before getting to the reality of the situation.

For example, according to tvbythenumbers.com, the Friday night Oprah show scored a 0.6 rating in the 25-49 demo on cable that night. Compare that with the number 1 show on cable on Friday night, “Gold Rush.” The Discovery Channel show had a 1.8 rating in that demo. So you can see the different and level of interest. Most men watched NBA basketball on Friday night on cable.

And it wasn’t Oprah’s fault, necessarily. But between not knowing where OWN is on the “dial,” to Armstrong’s lack of emotion, contrition or any sense that he was sorry, the whole thing became rapidly less interesting from night to night.

Just as  I told you last week, Prospect Park Productions has confirmed most of the “One Life to Live” cast for the Online Network including stars Erika Slezak, Robin Strasser, and Robert S. Woods. It looks like they’ve got just about everyone, with a few stragglers still coming in. But with “All My Children,” a show that ABC let fall to waste before its abrupt ending, things aren’t so easy. There’s still no sign of Susan Lucci, aka Erica Kane, and the star of the show. Right now, Prospect Park has managed only to line up sort of miscellaneous characters for the show.

But the lynchpins, so to speak, are Lucci and Michael E. Knight, as well as David Canary–who retired from the show but lives close enough to Stamford, Connecticut to put in occasional appearances. “All My Children” was really run into the ground over the last several years. They would have to get Julia Barr back, as well as a few others the show was forced to drop as their budgets were cut and their location was moved to Los Angeles from New York. Lucci is pretty busy, however, what with “Devious Maids,” the new Marc Cherry series for Lifetime, and a raft of other projects. If Prospect Park wants a success with “AMC” they’re going to have to make some kind of deal with Lucci– even if it’s for once a week.