TV is Superior to Movies - The Sopranos

I suppose it was going to take a company like HBO to create a serial show and stick with it. I talked about their show ROME earlier but it was clearly THE SOPRANOS that got the ball rolling on recent TV as high art.

When the show first came out, I was clearly in the 'We've had The Godfather, we've had Good Fellas, what else could be told?' camp but man I was totally wrong. Absolutely different point of view on the whole gangster thing. Couldn't help but be fascinated when killing happened during the day, go home to the suburbs at night, kind of thing. I was never a huge fan of the Dr. Melfi psychiatrist arc, but it clearly became one of the set pieces of The Soprano's.

You never quite got a handle on Tony Soprano in all the years of the show. Just when you really, really started to like him, his inner monster would show itself and you'd realize how you were dancing on the edges of something you should probably stay clear of.

As time has passed since the infamous final episode, I've grown to feel like that was good ending. At the time, I was mad and felt a little gipped. Since then, I've latched onto the 'the audience was whacked' theory for the ending. Creator David Chase has somewhat denied it, but I feel that was the best explanation. He killed us. The audience is now dead. We thought all was well and when we least expected us, gun to the back of the head, dead. If I were whacked, I'd be mad and feel a little gipped. We were whacked.

When you dance with the devil, the end is never good. With The Sopranos, we danced for four years. Time to pay up.

Title: The Sopranos
Episodes: 6 seasons (86 episodes)
Status: Whacked

One of Jeff's favorite quotes: Tony calls in Christopher to discipline about something... Christopher, "If this is about the Easter baskets I can explain." Tony, "What? No..." What Easter baskets? It says so much with so little. Brilliant show.