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"True Blood" Returns As "Mad Men" Hits The Road

Salomon Fuentes |
June 11, 2012 | 7:01 p.m. PDT

Staff Writer

Mad Men won't be back until next year (Courtesy AMC)
Mad Men won't be back until next year (Courtesy AMC)
As is the television tradition, the Madison Avenue guys on “Mad Men” are passing the torch (or is it the stake?) to the vampires and werewolves on “True Blood,” —at least for the rest of the summer.

“Mad Men” ended its fifth season on a high-note with record-high 2.7 million viewers watching the season finale capping a season that saw an average of 2.6 million viewers per episode, an increase of 15 percent from last season.

It’s a feather in the cap to a season that saw quite a few shocking surprises and changes for Don Draper and company. Though “Mad Men” is unlikely to ever be the breakout hit the “The Walking Dead” has been to AMC (9 million tuned in for zombie horror show’s season finale), its ratings have steadily improved over five seasons and the show has won Outstanding Drama Series at the Emmys each of its first four seasons.

The news coming out of Bon Temps, Louisiana also positive with word that a total 6.3 million viewers watched Sookie Stackhouse and her vampire pals open up the highly anticipated fifth season of “True Blood.”

Though the number of viewers was actually a drop of 3 percent from last year’s premiere, it remains by far HBO’s best-rated show and it took a real bite out of the competition Sunday night—most notably the Tony Awards whose 6 million viewers was a drop of almost a million viewers from the year before.

“True Blood” has added Christopher Molanti, formerly of “Law & Order: SVU,” to its cast as Roman, the 500-year-old leader of the Vampire Authority on the show. He will attempt to keep the peace between vampires and humans in Louisiana though he will likely have an easier time convincing HBO to release HBO Go as a standalone service.

You can catch "Trueblood" Sundays on HBO at 9 P.M. 

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