Mad Men vs. The Sopranos...

If you don't know these shows at least skip to the end to watch one of the greatest scenes in american television.

I know it's a debate that has been raging in your minds for months now. So I will tackle it here and now.

Mad Men is better.

Huh?...What?...Blasphemy!!!

Let me explain, nearly everyone in “Mad Men” is a likeable character in some ways despite their flaws, and nearly everyone in “Sopranos” was mostly unlikable but redeemed for the moment by plot and dialogue. I suppose that’s why the latter was lauded; there’s something perverse and vicariously appealing about caring for bad guys. Aren’t we naughty. But even the not-so-bad people in the Sopranos were unappealing, really; the wives were all shrews content to float along on murder money, the kids were empty shells, and the mobsters – while always fun to watch and listen to – were cruel men without qualities, only tics. Did anyone care if Christopher fell off the wagon? Anyone care about anyone, except whether they would be the Whacker or the Whackee this season? When you think about it, the grand tale of modern mobsters yearning after a bygone time when they had the nabe in their hands is a little like post-Communist block captains lamenting the end of the Soviet Union. Cry yourself a river. Put on the Sinatra and deal with it.

The show gets smaller as we get away from it, and in a way you start to feel a bit abashed for having gotten sucked in. “Mad Men” inhabits a far more interesting world, has people making an honest living, dealing with art in a quintessentially American way - through commerce – and takes place at the same time as the Soprano’s good old Good Old Days – except these guys aren’t stealing or hurting or killing. They don’t have any good old days; these are the good days.

The primary characters are superior. Don Draper is a better main character than Tony Soprano, period. Smarter, deeper, remote except when he’s not, but even then he holds back. Mysterious past, better father than Tony, better taste in paramours. He doesn’t have neuroses; he has problems. Tony would take Valium; Don would come up with a great campaign to make Tony feel good about taking it. Even though Tony would know it was BS, he’d repeat the tagline if someone saw it on his bathroom shelf, if only to laugh it off.

The most important distinction, perhaps: one is a cruel man. The other is a man capable of cruelty.

His wife is the flip of Carmella – as the years pass, frankly, I’d prefer the rich-girl sulk ‘n’ snit to having Carm spit out venom and toss a plate. Sterling and Cooper are the bosses – you could even say that crazy old Cooper is the Uncle June of the show, but again, he’s the flip side, all strange smiles and Zen-flavored Randian calm. The guys in the office are the crew, but unlike the mobsters slouching around the back of the Bing cursing and eating and preening, they’re clever sorts - young, anxious, cavalier, full of themselves but aware of their position in the organization, and their interchangibility. Really, if the fact that they don’t dese-dem-dose their dialogue while contemplating the finer points of stealing cigarettes from a truck makes them less interesting, then we’re a bit too steeped in the romance of the gangster.

As far as depicting a culture, well, the world of the Sopranos was narrow and dank; the world of “Mad Men” is far broader, and the lack of a criminal context frees it up to inhabit the world where most people live. There was more in the simple relationship between Peggy and the priest in the last episode than in a dozen episodes’ worth of Carmella’s self-indulgent anguish re: the young priest who came over to watch movies and get loaded on red wine. The points were made with great economy – a scene, a wordless shot, a symbol. Which is another feature of the show: it gets a lot done every week. The pace is laconic, but each episode is packed.

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This scene is about Don Draper pitching his idea to the Kodak people for their new invention, The Wheel. Don is a good man but troubled. It may lose something if you have not been watching the show and are not familiar with Don Draper but imagine a man who has strayed and longs to be back where he needs to be. To pause the music, go to the music player on the right side of the page and hit the little pause button.