Starting tomorrow, Tony Soprano and friends begin their final eight episodes before the HBO series forever sleeps with the fishes. I'm ready for the funeral.
Since it's premiere in 1999, "The Sopranos" has earned deserved acclaim for its unique perspective on suburban mob life, fleshed out with painstaking character development, iconoclastic plotting against trite television norms, stellar acting from its leads and a subversive, sick humor. It set a new standard for what TV could do.
The show has shone an often uncomfortable light on New Jersey — where the fiction illuminates truths about crime, corruption and culture many people would rather ignore.
But it's not about New Jersey. Or the mafia, even. David Chase has created a show about the deep dysfunction of some American families, in which people talk to each other but seldom communicate.
Whether it's Tony and Carmela's unspoken pacts or the machinations of Tony's other, more violent family, "The Sopranos" reveals the hollow dreaminess of so many American dreams.
But after all the years and all the corpses, the world of Tony Soprano has little more insight to offer. Plots have spun in place while themes have been revisited so often the producers might as well write them on planks of wood and smack us all over the heads. I'm curious what will happen to these characters in the end, but it's almost irrelevant.
All good things must end, and "The Sopranos" time has come. I'm convinced even the best-written series should bow out before a whiff of staleness enters the writers room. But worse than a prolonged demise is a premature one. With any luck, NBC's "Friday Night Lights" will survive to see next fall.
Depicting a season in the life of a Texas high school town that worships football above all else, "Friday Night Lights" shuns most television cliches. It's heartbreaking, honest and inspiring. There are characters to puzzle over, to hate and to root for. It's all that's great and horrible about sports, family and high school in America. And it's all that television should aspire to be, though not forever.
Thanks to DVDs, some of the best television — much of it on HBO — has found a degree of immortality. I've recently caught up with the first three seasons of "The Wire," and I've never seen a more intricate depiction of a city — up close, pock-marked, smelly with the institutional diseases that infect the games played by politicians, police, drug dealers, unions and everyone else. Series creator David Simon says the coming fifth season will be the last one — just enough time to explore every aspect of his novelistic, operatic, but reality- grounded world.
David Milch's "Deadwood" left HBO with only slim hope for a promised finale, but first provided the world's most dingy and delightful trek through the Old West, with profanity festooning the purple dialogue like some wicked rhapsody for rapscallions.
And Alan Ball's "Six Feet Under," which just completed its first syndicated run on Bravo, found such wonderful life exploring death, carving honest pathos out of soapy storylines. Like "The Sopranos," "Six Feet Under" lagged some during it's five-year HBO run which ended last year. But the finale left me with caskets of pain and joy and hope and sadness. I can only hope David Chase concludes his opus with a fraction of the brilliance and dignity Ball accomplished. But it is time.
Rest in peace, "Sopranos." Sometimes even the great ones need to get whacked.
Since it's premiere in 1999, "The Sopranos" has earned deserved acclaim for its unique perspective on suburban mob life, fleshed out with painstaking character development, iconoclastic plotting against trite television norms, stellar acting from its leads and a subversive, sick humor. It set a new standard for what TV could do.
The show has shone an often uncomfortable light on New Jersey — where the fiction illuminates truths about crime, corruption and culture many people would rather ignore.
But it's not about New Jersey. Or the mafia, even. David Chase has created a show about the deep dysfunction of some American families, in which people talk to each other but seldom communicate.
Whether it's Tony and Carmela's unspoken pacts or the machinations of Tony's other, more violent family, "The Sopranos" reveals the hollow dreaminess of so many American dreams.
But after all the years and all the corpses, the world of Tony Soprano has little more insight to offer. Plots have spun in place while themes have been revisited so often the producers might as well write them on planks of wood and smack us all over the heads. I'm curious what will happen to these characters in the end, but it's almost irrelevant.
All good things must end, and "The Sopranos" time has come. I'm convinced even the best-written series should bow out before a whiff of staleness enters the writers room. But worse than a prolonged demise is a premature one. With any luck, NBC's "Friday Night Lights" will survive to see next fall.
Depicting a season in the life of a Texas high school town that worships football above all else, "Friday Night Lights" shuns most television cliches. It's heartbreaking, honest and inspiring. There are characters to puzzle over, to hate and to root for. It's all that's great and horrible about sports, family and high school in America. And it's all that television should aspire to be, though not forever.
Thanks to DVDs, some of the best television — much of it on HBO — has found a degree of immortality. I've recently caught up with the first three seasons of "The Wire," and I've never seen a more intricate depiction of a city — up close, pock-marked, smelly with the institutional diseases that infect the games played by politicians, police, drug dealers, unions and everyone else. Series creator David Simon says the coming fifth season will be the last one — just enough time to explore every aspect of his novelistic, operatic, but reality- grounded world.
David Milch's "Deadwood" left HBO with only slim hope for a promised finale, but first provided the world's most dingy and delightful trek through the Old West, with profanity festooning the purple dialogue like some wicked rhapsody for rapscallions.
And Alan Ball's "Six Feet Under," which just completed its first syndicated run on Bravo, found such wonderful life exploring death, carving honest pathos out of soapy storylines. Like "The Sopranos," "Six Feet Under" lagged some during it's five-year HBO run which ended last year. But the finale left me with caskets of pain and joy and hope and sadness. I can only hope David Chase concludes his opus with a fraction of the brilliance and dignity Ball accomplished. But it is time.
Rest in peace, "Sopranos." Sometimes even the great ones need to get whacked.
4 comments:
Is Sopranos still on? !!!
Amazing! That;s a cool series but unfortunately didn't have the chance to see all episodes.
Yes i think it's high time they put an end because eight year is too much for a non-comedy series.
I don't know what you do these days in America but here in Greece we say "happy easter"
Happy Easter to you, too, although I don't celebrate it.
Can I ask how you happened upon this blog? I tried looking at yours, but, it's, um, all Greek to me.
Keep those Greek jokes coming, Bones. See if you can work in a "Jimmy the Greek" reference next time. Or maybe something about gyros...hmmmm, gyros.
Anyway, I checked out your new buddy's blog as well. The best I could make of it is that ΣΔΤ is having a mixer at Phi Sig.
Quick bones! Get some chloroform and knock this guy out and prevent him from leaving. You have to cultivate your fan base!!
G-race
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