 The Sopranos (HBO) The Sopranos world was intimate, pathetic, brutal, and multidimensional. The mob boss was in therapy. His judgmental wife was ambivalent about living in the spoils of her husband's fortune, since she didn't feel loved. The kids dealt with regular teenage problems like doing chores, overeating, trying drugs, and having sex, with the mafia element merely a backdrop. The mob crew was colorful in the GoodFellas sense, but also concretely human – they had nightmares, they struggled with addiction, they tried to make their relationships work. Even the wannabes who wanted in on the mob life were depicted holistically, getting high, jerking off, dreaming of the good life as funded by organized crime. I stopped watching at some point, and coming back to it at the beginning of the fifth season, I see that the show has become a parody of itself. Now, rather than trolling the emotional depths of some genuinely conflicted and sometimes epically tragic characters, the show seems to just be about people shouting at each other. With the initial novelty having worn off, and all the hype having built The Sopranos up to be a faultless paragon of Great Television, what is left for the casual viewer is simply a mediocre soap opera. What could they do for shock value, anymore? Abruptly killing Tony Soprano would be about it. The current plotlines revolve around the release from prison of some old-school mobsters who were locked up in the 80s and now want back in on the action; Tony and Carmela's divorce; and Christopher's wife Adriana ratting out the family to the Feds. Yawn. Hm, what were we just talking about? Those who still hold on to The Sopranos as being the ultimate in TV are kinda kidding themselves, or perhaps they're right, but TV being what it is, being "the ultimate" doesn't amount to much. No wonder I find myself reading more in my free time, and only watching TV for its most practical offering: scrambled porn.
Review by La Fée © 2004 |