This week there's been a lot of controversy surrounding the negotiations for Mad Men creator/executive producer Matthew Weiner's deal at AMC to keep his involvement with the hit series alive. Though a three-year deal for $30 million sounded sweet, apparently there were some issues creatively that Weiner wasn't pleased with. One such issue would've forced Weiner to get rid of two cast members every season, for the next three seasons and to cut the episodes' running time by two minutes.

Thankfully, the former issues is no longer a problem as the cast is safe from any financial issues that brought about the potential cast cuts in the first place, and Weiner reserves the right to axe character simply on a creative basis.  However, as for the episode length, with the exception of the season premiere and finale, episodes will only be 45 minutes in length, but for OnDemand, DVD and other formats, the episodes will remain at 47 minutes. More after the jump.

Deadline reports deal still stands for three-years for $30 million, but the clincher is that Weiner says, ""These will be the last 3 seasons. I'm going to take it one year at a time without the distraction to ever have to go through this again. I'm incredibly grateful for the outpouring of support and overwhelmed that I get to finish telling the stories I want to tell." While I'm sort of upset that two minutes of each episode of the series won't be seen on the air, it's good to hear that the series has a planned end in sight, and we won't have to deal with these pesky negotiating dilemmas any longer. Work begins on the fifth season immediately, so stay tuned to find out when in early 2012 we'll see Mad Men return to AMC.