The debate begins anew with this weekend’s return of Mad Men (Sunday, AMC at 10 p.m.). The sombre dramatic treatise set in the New York advertising world of the early sixties remains the darling of the TV industry, which is fairly impressive for a show going into its fourth season.
Running concurrently is the HBO drama True Blood (Sunday, The Movie Network at 9 p.m.), a moody supernatural drama about humans and vampires co-habitating in a steamy Louisiana backwater. Midway through its third season, True Blood is adored by critics and cherished by fans, even with the recent addition of werewolves into the dramatic mix.
True Blood and Mad Men have buzz, at least among Entertainment Weekly subscribers, and despite the fact neither is a ratings giant. True Blood averages around three million U.S. viewers, and a few hundred thousand viewers in Canada; Mad Men pulls in two million and change in the United States, and an untold number of followers here, since no Canadian network has picked up the latest season.
Both series emanate from a precious broadcast echelon - mostly that of viewers willing to spring for premium packages - and both are up for Best Drama honours at next month’s Emmy Awards (along with Breaking Bad, Dexter, Lost and The Good Wife). But on a strictly categorical basis, which is the better show? This is the tale of the tape.
TV PEDIGREE
* True Blood – Created by Alan Ball, also the creator of HBO’s Six Feet Under.
* Mad Men – Created by Matthew Weiner, former writer/producer on The Sopranos.
Advantage: Ball, though only because he ran the show on SFU for six seasons.
TITLE SEQUENCE
* True Blood – Grainy pastiche of disturbing images of the American deep south, including rednecks, roadkill, gospel revivals, kids in KKK garb and a dead dog consumed by maggots. Brr.
* Mad Men – Against mournful music by RJD2, it’s a silhouette of an ad executive falling out of an office building and slowly downward past skyscrapers emblazoned with sixties-era advertising images.
Advantage Mad Men. The opening titles still feel like a disturbing dream, even without the graphic imagery.
TROPHY COUNT
* True Blood – The show has collected a trunkload of less-celebrated industry honours - Satellite Awards, Television Critics Awards, People’s Choice Awards and something called the “Tubey” - but has had minimal recognition from Emmy voters, until this year. Series star Anna Paquin took home a Golden Globe for Best Actress in 2008.
* Mad Men – Almost too many to count. Emmy-winner for Best TV Drama the last two years; Golden Globes for Best Drama three years running. Winner of a Peabody Award for its rookie season. Last year’s recipient of Best International Show at the British Academy Television Awards, eh wot.
Advantage: Mad Men. Matthew Weiner will eventually need to put a new wing on his house for trophies.
CASH-IN POTENTIAL
* True Blood – The show’s success has bumped up sales of the book series it’s based on (The Southern Vampire Mysteries by Charlaine Harris), but nobody is racing out to buy True Blood lunchboxes. Earlier this week, the series was launched as a comic book, in both print and digital formats.
* Mad Men – Quite a little cash cow, the series has spawned Mad Men edition Barbie and Ken dolls, a Banana Republic clothing line and several pop-culture tomes, including Mad Men Unbuttoned: A Romp Through 1960s America.
Advantage: Mad Men, by far. But why no Pete Campbell doll?
POP-CULTURE PRESENCE
* True Blood – The show has yet to reach the mainstream level attained by The Sopranos, but its profile should rise now that the first two seasons are syndicated (the first season currently airs on Space in Canada). Probably worth noting that Mad magazine has done its parody treatment on Twilight, but not True Blood.
* Mad Men – Firmly entrenched in the American zeitgeist. Magazine covers on People, Vanity Fair, Esquire, et al. Support player Crista Flanagan graces the current issue of Playboy (and appears sixties-style naked inside). And it has been parodied on both The Simpsons and Sesame Street.
Advantage: Mad Men. No contest [I disagree. TB parodied by Sesame Street? Yeah okay. Also, Mad Men doesn't have a porn parody. Just sayin'.]
FEMALE CHARACTERS
* True Blood – Telepathic waitress Sookie (Anna Paquin) is one tough cookie. She was the rescuer of her eventual vampire beau Bill in the first season and has done so again since. This season has brought more screen time for Sookie’s teen vampire charge Jessica (Deborah Ann Woll), which is a good thing.
* Mad Men – For a show set in the early sixties, the Mad Men ladies are corkers. Once-naive Peggy (Elisabeth Moss) had a baby out of wedlock, but continues to mount her ad career; Don Draper’s trophy wife Betty (January Jones) walked away from her philandering husband; and watch and see if zaftig secretary Joan (Christina Hendricks) doesn’t do the same with her chauvinist hubby.
Advantage: Mad Men. You think it was easy being a woman in the 60s? [What? First ep: Sookie + chain. Girl is fierce.]
STRONG MALES?
* True Blood – A continuing carp against is the show is that the central male character of Bill (Stephen Moyer) is a wuss. It certainly doesn’t help a vampire’s rep when your fiancée has to repeatedly come to your rescue. Bloodsucker sheriff Eric (Alexander Skarsgard) is a stronger dramatic figure, as is bar owner - and shapeshifter - Sam (Sam Trammell).
* Mad Men – The full spectrum of sixties alpha males. Handsome Don Draper (Jon Hamm) shifts between charming and detestable - his entire life is a lie, we’re learning; aristocratic ad veteran Roger (John Slattery) is ruthless in business and weak in his desires; ambitious account executive Pete (Vincent Kartheiser) is the most obnoxious, though occasionally pitiable; and art director Sal (Bryan Batt), who will reappear later this season, is a portrait in closeted gay angst.
Advantage: Mad Men. You may not like these fellas, but they’re never boring. [Ignoring Lafayette's fierceness. Typical. Also how can Sookie come to Bill's rescue, and lose for strong female? SMH.]
RAWNESS QUOTIENT
* True Blood – Anything goes on HBO. Unfettered by network censors, hence no barriers on language or violence and the sexual situations can be more sexual, all of which seems about right for a series involving modern-day vampires.
* Mad Men – The other side of the coin. AMC is basic cable in the U.S., which means no nudity or graphic violence and minimal swearing. Sure, the ad sharks can say damn or hell, but an F-word? Not in 1964.
Advantage: True Blood, which probably deserves some credit for using the lack of censorship judiciously.
CONCEPT CRED
* True Blood – The show exists on a fantasy plane, with casual story nods to synthetic blood and nobody really taking much notice of vampires and shapeshifters wandering among normal folk. The entry point was the murder investigation involving Sookie’s brother Jason (Ryan Kwanten), but the story has since ambled off into several directions, with creator Ball simultaneously balancing several plotlines.
* Mad Men – Over three seasons, Weiner has stuck rigidly to juxtaposing his characters against a timeline of real-life events. His stories are rife with references to Bob Dylan, Richard Nixon, Allen Ginsberg and the like. Last season closed in November, 1963, paralleling the takeover of Sterling-Cooper by aggressive Brits with the blanketing gloom that came over America following the assassination of president John F. Kennedy. The new season picks up one year later.
Advantage: Mad Men, if only for period detail. Then and now, those beehive hairdos defy physics. [Excuse you. Clearly you've never seen the post-mortems. The WWII one was ace.]
STAYING POWER
* True Blood – Just last month, HBO announced that there will be a fourth season of True Blood, which will debut in the summer of 2011.
* Mad Men – AMC has yet to confirm plans past the incoming fourth season - hey, it’s a channel that normally airs old John Wayne movies around the clock - but two days ago, Variety reported that the network was in talks to extend Mad Men to a fifth and sixth season, and possibly beyond.
Advantage: Mad Men. In TV and advertising, you have to strike while the iron’s hot. [Disagree. TB has the books.]
THE WINNER [a.k.a. what you've all really want to read...]
Mad Men, though not for the usual populist reasons. Yes, True Blood wades into deliciously dark territory -- this is not Twilight, kids -- but Mad Men is more stylized, and gets right into the skin of the people who virtually spawned the advertising industry. To older viewers, it feels real, and younger viewers should realize this was exactly what North American culture was like only a half-century ago. As happened with Six Feet Under, people will forget about True Blood the moment it stops airing. Mad Men is the sizzle, and the steak, and will be analyzed by TV historians for years.
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