Mad Men? Elaborate theories enrich TV viewing

• Dustin Rowles%2C a television writer for UPROXX.com%2C is behind two popular %27Mad Men%27 theories

Sitting on a couch and staring at a television screen may not appear stimulating to the brain. For some passionate viewers, though, watching TV has become a complex intellectual exercise.

This season of Mad Men has generated a buzz that stems from several exhaustive Internet theories. The show's fans have debated everything from the likelihood that a character will die by the end of the season to the identity of the mysterious new character Bob Benson.

Dustin Rowles, a television writer for UPROXX.com, is responsible for popularizing two of the season's most talked-about theories.

On May 29, he published an article about a Reddit user who insisted that Megan Draper's story arc and fashion closely mirrored the real-life tragedy of serial killer victim Sharon Tate.

A few weeks later, Rowles published his own theory, suggesting that Megan (Jessica Pare) had already died. She continued to appear on the show, he alleged, because her husband, Don (Jon Hamm) hadn't yet accepted her passing.

Popular news outlets like Vulture and Entertainment Weekly ushered both of Rowles' articles into the mainstream conversation.

While skeptics have balked, Rowles insists he wasn't being unreasonable. "I wasn't trying to make up anything," he says. "It felt real; it felt possible."

Rowles constructed the theory in about two hours, drawing on "the subtext, the symbolism, the allusions."

As for the Sharon Tate theory, Rowles says, "You could relate to that sort of story for Megan."

Rowles admits he didn't expect his theories to be completely accurate. "Matthew Weiner doesn't do M. Night Shyamalan," he says. "My mind just got a little carried away."

Nonetheless, Rowles believes that theories add value to the viewing experience. "I think it makes watching the show a lot more fun," he says.

College students like Renato Flores, 19, agree. "I like to see other people's theories because I like to see what the community thinks about the show," says the Maryland Institute College of Art sophomore.

Flores says shows with unpredictable plots and evolving characters, including Mad Men and American Horror Story, provide the most fodder for theories.

"Am I gonna be let down? Am I gonna be surprised?" Flores asks. If these questions are enticing enough, he says, theorizing is worth the effort.

Others are less enamored with the proliferation of fan speculation.

Jared McCoy, 22, says he's reads Mad Men theories, but he doesn't obsess over them.

"I'm not searching them out," says the University of North Alabama senior. "I just want to watch it as a straightforward narrative."

Some shows obviously invite more speculation than others. Rowles says the complicated new season of Arrested Development lends itself to scrutiny, while McCoy points to the cliffhanger in the second season finale of Sherlock.

In the case of Mad Men, expectant viewers didn't have to wait long for answers.

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times last week, the show's creator, Matthew Weiner, responded to the speculation by insisting, "It's just not part of the show. No one's going to die."

"I was crestfallen," Rowles says of the news. "There was no meaning behind any of it."

Despite the setback for his theories, though, Rowles says the following week's new episode was satisfying anyway. "It didn't hurt the experience of watching it at all," he says.

Fan theories are hardly a new phenomenon. Rowles thinks that television shows invite speculation more than other forms of media.

"The problem with a book is you can read ahead and find out," he says. With television shows, he says, the week between episodes allows ample time for speculation.

McCoy, meanwhile, credits the rise in fan theories to the popular drama Lost, which spawned entire Internet sites analyzing even the tiniest clues .

"Lost started a whole chain of that kind of out-of-the-box thinking," he says.

And the chain may grow longer: The season finale of Mad Men airs this Sunday night.

Mark Lieberman is a summer 2013 Collegiate Correspondent.