the fact that a show lasts 8 years proves nothing. i've forced myself to watch every episode of the sopranos over the years, and i'd rate it as: awful. let's re-cap the first 7 seasons: nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, adrianna gets whacked, nothing, nothing. i can guarantee that anybody who thinks the sopranos is great tv has never seen The Shield.
I hope someone kills AJ. What a useless POS. He replaced Phil as the biggest turd on the show. Last year, some posters here actually thought future AJ might fill daddy's shoes. C'mon! This was good episode. Funny to see all the strippers and customers of the Bing standing outside watching a shootout.
You're right. It's all hype - I mean, at least at the end of each episode of "Hunter" we weren't left hanging each week like a bunch of whiny b**** babies (save for the rare two part episode). Stephen J. Cannell succeeds were David Chase fails. And that's not all, I mean that Fred Dryer could act, lol as if Gandolfini could carry one of his beige blazers.
Last time I saw scorsesee he was making yet another mob movie, this time a remake of a hong kong film. Scorsese is great at directing and cinematics, , but if you've noticed he doesn't do much with plots or grand arcs or desiging original characters, he pretty much takes those from his source material and borrows characters, where he has to have them born and dead in 2 hours or so. As a consequence, more often than not he has a simple moral about x whacking y whacking z, blah blah blah, wrapped up in a standard "rise & fall" morality tale. Don't get me wrong, I like his movies, they are well made and entertaining and he is a master cinematographer, but really since Taxi Driver I haven't seen a whole lot of original ideas. Chase is not a director and does not direct any of the episodes - he focuses more on storytelling and character development which is at heart a literary convention, because he has 10-15 hours per season to tell it in. That is why the shows are rife with allusion, symbolism, metaphor, and allegory, which, again, is why we're even talking about the show nearly a decade later. Otherwise it doesn't stay on the air that long.
How dare you disrespect The King of Comedy!!!! Seriously, The Sopranos is the closest thing my generation has to "The Great American Novel"
once again, why dont you go find a list of shows that have been on the air 7+ seasons. hint: "hunter" is one of them (didn't even come close to understanding your point of that post though). have you ever seen an episode of The Shield?
Well, geez, I'm a fan of the show too! Like I said, I've followed every season. I just don't think that it's quite as mind-blowing as you do. It's a unique show in that it had a format on HBO that allowed it to be stretched out over years so naturally you're going to get a lot more in-depth development. Because it was on HBO and because it was an immediate smash success, they could get away with whatever they wanted, and they really went for it. Totally impressive, agreed. I just feel that if you stretched Goodfellas out for 80 hours or whatever that it'd be pretty great, too. Personally, I find a lot of the "symbolism and allegory" in the Sopranos to be kinda clunky. The whole Kevin Finnerty thing, I thought, was boring and godawful and it apparently went nowhere. The subtle stuff in "Taxi Driver" by contrast I thought was great, but it's silly to compare movies to a long-running TV series, so I'll quit digressing. I guess I find the Sopranos' clunkers to be as memorable as their hits. The worst, in my opinion, was when Melfi got raped. They spend a couple seasons building up feelings for this character, and then out of the blue they show us a brutal, graphic rape. Well, fine, if they'd done anything with it, but she has one session or two with her therapist about it and then it's never mentioned again. What was the point, other than just shock factor? There were no repercussions and it just felt like exploitation. Similarly, Paulie got cancer and then a month later he doesn't. I realize there are too many threads to possibly wrap them all up, but I can't be convinced that all of this is thought out to the letter and executed brilliantly. I give them a pass on the Vito arc because I felt that was an interesting idea that just didn't work out, but I thought it was dull and anti-climactic. But hey, here I am still watching!
I'll translate for you. For the most part TV shows are allowed to continue based soley on the ad revenue. The more popular a show the higher the commercial time will cost. The Sopranos does not depend on commercial revenue but instead relys on viewer subscription to HBO and DVD sales. You can thus deduct that since the program is not free (CBS,ABC,FOX) or part of some basic package (FX, Comedy Central) the quality has to be greater.
Sam, I like the Sopranos as much as the next guy, but to say it's a great hit because of it's cerebral themes, and intellectual subtext is bogus IMO. Mafia movies were big hits and highly acclaimed in the 20 year stretch before the Sopranos, so it's not like it's mining new territory. It's just that the formula (mob movies) finally met a venue on television that would work (HBO), without sacrificing the requisite language and violence, or running afoul of the FCC. Most people like the Sopranos for the same reason they like the Godfather, Casino, or Goodfellas etc. It's the combination of intrigue, violence, intensity, and the idea of mob honor (which can make a loathsome individual sympathetic in the vacuum of their environment) that can tap into our most visceral feelings. Most "watercooler" conversation about the sopranos isn't talking about it's themes or motifs. People are talking about who's going to get whacked next. And don't let the internet fool you. I know there are sites and forums dedicated to deconstructing anything and everything about the sopranos, but those people are a small minority of viewers. And if we're talking about original ideas and story arcs, and plot lines and all that stuff it's not like the sopranos strayed that far away from the a standard formula for a few years: 1. Early in the season, they introduce some new characters, or bring former background characters to the forefront (see Richie April, Jackie Jr, Ralphie, Tony B., and Vito) 2. Have them run afoul of of somebody and become a headache for Tony. 3. Let that stew for a few episodes. 4. Whack 'em. There's some twist and turns, and variations of the whacking, but the whole thrust of all the seasons in the middle never went too far off-course. They even used the deus ex machina of the feds arresting Tony's main rival in the season finale twice (with Junior in season 1 and Johnny Sac in season 5). The sopranos is a great show (arguably the best of all-time), but it's not some evolutionary leap in mafia storytelling. It IS Goodfellas as a tv show IMO.
Don't know if this falls into any of the categories, but.... Did anyone notice the two classic rock references in last Sunday's episode? 1. Tony is in Dr. Melfi's office. As she's kicking him out, he says "You don't need a gynecologist to know which way the wind blows" (hatcheted Dylan reference) 2. Tony's cleaning the pool. Janice and he argue, and as she's leaving, Tony says (in reference to Bobby) "Exile on Main Street" (Rolling Stones reference). I love that kind of stuff...
here's a potential spoiler Spoiler http://www.dailyrecord.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Site=C0&Date=20070313&Category=NEWS01&ArtNo=703130802&Ref=PH&Params=Itemnr=1
That picture was taken 20 miles from my sister's place. Spoiler I think Tony's getting whacked, and I think Paulie's gonna do it. One of the preview scenes at the end of last Sunday's episode had the both of them sitting in that truck.
talk about flawed logic....so....companies pump money for ads into unpopular shows that nobody watches? that makes sense!
If it was that easy then why hasn't its success been replicated on showtime or other cable channels not subject to FCC regulation? Despite the fact that it goes over a lot of peoples heads - if not for the artistic value, it is hard to keep the writers and actors happy. Without David Chase the show would have gone the way of "Rome". Look at the less-weighty HBO shows - do you think "entourage" is going to be going strong a decade in? Doubtful. As far as goodfellas - come on. Goodfellas is a very simple morality play which is essentially carried by Joe Pesci playing his stock character (very well, I might add) for the very first time. When in goodfellas did we explore Henry Hill's relationship with his mother or his son and how that colors the rest of his life? In "goodfellas" and the rest, the characters are essentially characters and their outside lives are just window dressing for their roles as antagonists/protagonists in a cops and robbers show.
