Watching last night’s series premiere of the promising Boardwalk Empire — in which likably unlikable men drink, smoke, and generally behave badly in an old-timey setting — it was hard not to wonder if HBO is still upset about having lost Mad Men to AMC. Could Boardwalk have been hatched by the network in specific hopes of outdoing Matthew Weiner? It’s almost as if they made a list of things people like about Mad Men and set out to include double of each in their show. After the jump, a head-to-head comparison.
| |
 Mad Men |
 Boardwalk Empire |
|---|
| Tumultuous Setting | Manhattan during the slow-starting sixties | Atlantic City in the roaring twenties
|
| Smoking | Constant | Constant. |
| Drinking |
Constant. | Constant, even though it's illegal, which makes it way cooler |
| Set design | Totally gorgeous. Each episode costs a reported $3 million. | Totally gorgeous. Pilot episode reportedly cost as much as $30 million. |
| Suits | Awesome, but mostly two-piece | Awesome and mostly three-piece |
| Casual racism | Took till the third season to feature a character in blackface. | Took about 30 seconds to feature a character in blackface. |
| Casual sexism | Women treated like pieces of ass in the workplace. | Women treated like pieces of ass. |
| Profanity | Lots of shits and damns. |
F-bomb dropped in pilot's opening minute. |
| Violence | A rape, some punching, a little pigeon-shooting, and a lawnmowed foot |
Entire faces shot off |
| Nudity | Some male toplessness |
Female toplessness and bottomlessness |
| Flawed male anti-hero | Genius identity-thieving ad and ladies man Don Draper (Jon Hamm) |
Genius bootlegging, hit-ordering racketeer Nucky Johnson (Steve Buscemi) |
| Hero's fun-ruining family | Mean, childish wife and bratty kids |
No kids and a dead wife |
| Hero's fast-rising protege | Peggy, the straight-laced workaholic copywriter |
Jimmy, the unhinged, PTSD-suffering, Princeton-dropout gangster |
| Historical Figures | Conrad Hilton |
Al Capone |
| Show creator's celebrity mentor | Matthew Weiner had help from Sopranos boss David Chase. |
Terrance Winter had help from Sopranos boss David Chase. And Martin Scorsese. |
