Revisiting the Sopranos A Dozen Years Later
Does it Hold Up?
The Sopranos was created by writer David Chase and ran six seasons (86 episodes) from 1999 - 2007. Like a lot of fans, people who create “best of lists” and many TV critics, I believe The Sopranos is the greatest TV show ever made. Those 86 episodes have the production quality, the acting and story telling of 86 movies. Seriously, we’ve never seen anything like it before or since and this was the last of the “event TV shows”… shows where you rearranged your personal schedule so you could watch it as it aired on Sunday nights.
This certainly was the case with my group of friends. We watched the shows in groups. Sopranos watching parties was a thing for sure. The day after a show, that’s all you talked about. We’d be discussing what we saw like this was a group of our friends and analyzing ever moment in the shows like the characters were real people. What if they would have done this… or what a character was thinking in a moment on the show. You get lost in the fact, the actors are simply doing what is written. The show was literally that well written though. It fostered that sort of discussion, analyzing and rehashing of every moment.
I hadn’t watched the show, though, since probably 2009. When it was on the air, I never missed an episode and we would go back and rewatch them again-and-again. The premiere of a new season meant you had to go back and watch the previous season in order to prepare for the new season. My final viewing of these shows was after the DVDs came out I watched them all again but literally haven’t caught an episode since that time.
So in 2021, some 12-years after the last time I watched the show, would it hold up? Is it truly that good or is this appreciation for the show simply a fondness for great moments earlier in my life?
The last two weeks I’ve gone back and in true 2021 style, I’ve binged the show… hard. I’m catching an episode at breakfast, one at lunch and 3, 4 or 5 episodes in the evening after my ABV Network events are done (waking up tired the next day wondering why I stayed up so late).
I have to say, I wasn’t prepared for what I would see.. The shows are even better than I remember. The writing and story telling is unbelievable. If you are into dramatic shows with characters on the edge and you are highly in-tune with what it takes to write something like that you can see where they paint themselves in a corner and while a show may be exciting and fun for a while, the writers wear themselves out. It never happened with the Sopranos. In fact, they were always ahead of the audience. What I mean by that is they always suprised you, the viewer, with what you saw on screen. You never had the ability to just figure out what was going to happen as a fan of the show because the writers and directors controlled that the whole time. This is an incredible feat for 86 episodes.
The casting was perfect across the board as well. Each character from the main cast to the minor characters, and even extras, were great contributors to the show. The Sopranos, like no other show or movie ever, brought you into the lives of a crime family. You see the horrible things they do, but you also see the people behind it as well… who they are, how they got to be involved in a life of crime, their family, the happy parts of their lives, the sad parts, all while never trying to paint them as good people or bad. The narrators (the writers and directors) never tried to lead you into a Robin Hood type of scenario where these are just great people falling outside of the law to make a living. It’s just a telling of a story. You are horrified by much of what you see. You laugh at other parts. You associate with some of it and you can’t begin to figure out other parts of it. With the exception of technology, old cell phones, websites and boosting DVD players, the show truly holds-up across the board.
What about the ending, though… worst in TV history, right?
I never felt that way. I mean when it aired on June 10, 2007, I was there with all of my friends at my Dad’s house. The Sopranos finale wasn’t something we were going to miss so everyone got together and brought Italian food over to my Dad’s house and about 20 of us watched the show together. The last scene is so intense, like you knew by the clock and what you were seeing this was it… then the cable goes out and everyone is screaming… “No” or “What the F*ck?”… then the HBO logo comes on. To me, that was the perfect way to end it because it could be whatever the viewer wanted it to be… just a slice of time in the family and the show ends. The abrupt cut to black could obviously be the killing of Tony. Then again, maybe he got shot, but he recovered. Despite what just about everyone said, I liked the ending because I was hopeful we would see the show comeback at some point, at least via a movie if they didn’t bring back the actual TV show.
Of course, with the untimely death of James Gandolfini on June 13, 2013, any hopes for a return of the Sopranos was dashed. No one else could play that character other than Gandolfini.
So, the revisit to the Sopranos confirmed what I already knew. It’s the best show that’s ever been made. We have so many more options for shows now then we did then and there have been some really enjoyable and entertaining TV made since then, but no where near what the Sopranos brought to us each Sunday.
It’s true, the Sopranos is the G.O.A.T. (Greatest of All-Time)
One final note…
After being delays more than a year due to Covid, on September 24, The Many Saints of Newark finally comes to theaters. It’s a prequel to the Sopranos story focused on the story of Tony’s father and uncle and features Gandolfini’s son playing a young Tony Soprano. I’ll be in Lexington that day for an event (The Bourbon Country Burn), but if anyone wants to join me for a late night screening, I’ve got to see that movie the day it comes out.
This is either the final moment of the Sopranos show, or a statement on TV shows of today (your call!)