LOS ANGELES

THERE is an almost Sisyphean sensation that comes from navigating the network of hallways, elevators and escalators at the Los Angeles Center Studios here that lead at last to the dimly lighted office of Matthew Weiner and asking him, point blank, what he plans for the new season of “Mad Men.” It is a futile feeling because, as any true acolyte knows, he is not going to give a straight answer to the question.

Even at this stage in the life cycle of his award-winning, television-landscape-reshaping period drama, Mr. Weiner — no mythological figure, just a grinning, 46-year-old mortal in a fleece pullover on a cool California morning — is too protective of his property to give up what he considers spoilers, which is essentially any information about the show at all.

And even though an excruciating 17-month hiatus will have elapsed between the last new “Mad Men” episode and its fifth-season premiere, scheduled for March 25 on AMC, Mr. Weiner, creator, lead producer and animating force, will not disclose any concrete details about the roguish 1960s advertising executive Don Draper (played by Jon Hamm) and his coterie of frustrated strivers and failed monogamists, or even the year in which the new season is set.

What he will share is a single piece of dialogue: “There’s a line in Episode 3,” Mr. Weiner said, “where somebody goes, ‘When is everything going to get back to normal?’ And who hasn’t felt that right at this minute?”