TV Series: The Sopranos Season 1

Three days ago I started to watch "The Sopranos" for the fourth time. I'll write a little about it despite my current problems. Maybe I should say it's because of my problems. It fits better into my schedule than other series like "Rome". When I was watching "Rome" I made the decision to write detailed summaries of each episode. I've now suspended my reviews until I have more time on my hands. While watching "The Sopranos" I'll limit myself to making a few comments about the episodes. There is really no reason for me to review it. There are so many websites with detailed reviews of this series. I've checked at least a dozen of them. You can find them with a simple web search, but I recommend two sites:

Sopranos Fandom Site: This is a fan-made encyclopaedia of the series.

Sopranos Autopsy: This is a review site by a guy called Ron, the best review site I know.

The Sopranos (I'll omit the quotation marks from now on) was a special series. It was ground-breaking. Critics say that it kickstarted the Second Golden Age of Television. I don't like that expression, but I'll let it stand. It implies that there weren't good television series before it. Maybe it would be better to call it the New Age of Television Drama, if that expression hasn't already been used by someone else. It was a stylistic difference to previous television dramas. In the past television series had seasons lasting 22 to 26 episodes. They ran all year, repeated twice. Episodes were filmed in a rush, one episode per week, followed by a six month rest period for the actors. In the new age that began with the Sopranos series were shorter, ranging from eight to thirteen episodes. The investment per episode was larger, and two to three weeks were spent filming each episode. It was a deliberate attempt to put quality over quantity, even if it left television audiences frustrated by the long gaps between seasons.

Another characteristic of the new age was serialisation. What I mean is, in the old age episodes were usually standalone and could be watched in any order. In the new age the episodes have to be watched in order, even if there aren't explicit cliff-hangers.

I don't want to put down the television drama series of the old age down. There were excellent series, such as "Star Trek", "Highlander" and "Buffy Vampire Slayer". However, these series had to struggle with smaller budgets than new age series such as "Dexter" and "Game of Thrones".

It wasn't a clean break between the old age and the new age. For instance, the Sopranos ran from 1999 to 2007, whereas "Smallville" (an excellent old age series) ran from 2001 to 2011. A big overlap.

I personally consider the Sopranos to be the best new age series, due to the superior writing. It has a large cast, but every single person is well crafted, so that we know them all intimately. To compare it with "Game of Thrones", which also has a large cast, the characters aren't as well defined. Don't get me wrong, I think "Game of Thrones" is very good, but the Sopranos is better.

The very first scene shows Tony Soprano in a psychiatrist's waiting room, looking up at a naked statue.

The camera only shows her legs and her upper body. We can assume that the woman is completely naked. Such a statue seems out of place in a psychiatrist's office, especially in the waiting room. The sexuality puts men at unease while they wait for their appointment. The statue stands above the man, in a dominant position. 

Dr. Jennifer Melfi is an intelligent, powerful woman. She knows that her skirt is short enough to distract her male clients. Sexuality is power.

Tony Soprano is an alpha male. He doesn't allow himself to be overwhelmed by a sexy pair of legs. He has sexy mistresses (goomahs) throughout the series. We frequently see him and Dr. Melfi sparring to stay in control.

The relationship between Tony Soprano and Jennifer Melfi is one of the most important parts of the series. In many episodes we see action scenes alternating with Tony telling his psychiatrist about what happened. He isn't always completely honest.

Tony is visiting a psychiatrist because his house doctor (who's also his next door neighbour) has diagnosed him with a panic attack. In the consultations Tony figures out the reason himself.

Tony had a family of ducks that lived in his garden and swam in his swimming pool. First there was one duck, then a second, then a whole family. He went into the pool every day to feed them. After the ducklings learnt how to fly, the ducks all left. Shortly after this, Tony had his first panic attack. It's clear that Tony was afraid of losing his family.

Family.

That's what the whole series is about. Tony is a man with two families. One is his wife and children. The other is his family of associates as a Mafia boss. I use that word for the sake of ease, but it's repeatedly stated in the series that the word Mafia is disliked. They prefer to use euphemisms such as the business or the family.

I've already written more than I wanted to, so I shan't write about the family members today. I'll only mention Christopher Moltisanti. Tony usually calls him his nephew, but on some occasions he calls him his cousin. He's actually neither. 

The relationship is via Tony's wife Carmela. Christopher is the son of her cousin Dickie, which means he's her first cousin once removed. I don't think there's a word to describe Tony's relationship to him. He can hardly call him his step-first-cousin-once-removed. Nephew sounds better.

There's a slight continuity error. Don't worry, I doubt many people have noticed. In the Pilot episode Tony and his colleagues meet at a store called Centanni's.

From the second episode onwards the store is called Satriale's. The reason for the change is that Centanni's is a genuine meat market in New Jersey. It was suitable as an exterior, but the producers soon realised that they would need indoor scenes, so they needed a new building. They found an empty building a few streets away which they modified to look like a real meat market.

Apart from this one exception the series is consistent, even if everything isn't revealed at once. In the first episode we have the impression that Tony is the boss of the New Jersey Mafia. Oops! I used the M word again! In the second episode we find out that Jackie Aprile is the acting boss while the actual boss, Ercole DiMeo, is in prison serving a life sentence. Jackie's time is limited, because he's suffering from cancer.

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