The Sopranos

[Riverwind (imported)]

Yep, you nailed me, I think I watched about 15 min of the first show, and yes I do not watch much TV. PBS, news, thats about it because if the Sopranos is the best I know I am not missing anything.

River

[kristoff]

If you have not watched The Sopranos, you don't know televison well enough to criticise it because the series is the standard for the best television.

If such is the standard for TV today, then I am bereft of any understanding.... I have never watched Sopranos (or the Tenors). Suspect I am not missing much. Of course, I shot my TV years ago! If the princess wants HDTV, he'll have to get his own, cuz I ain't buying one.

[Blaise (imported)]

Berlin Alexanderplatz, directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, is the only television program I know that is in the same league with the Sopranos . I am not certain that I can fairly compare them because they differ in many ways, but both are great works of art. Each series depicts a culture, society, and historical era. The overtones are incredible in each series. Watching them is like reading Dickens or Faulkner.

They are much better than almost any movie I have seen in several years. The same is true of some other television series. Sometimes Homicide: Life on the Streets as well as shows such as Joan of Arcadia offer outstanding work.

These days with art theatres closed, I have to watch DVDs; yet, as much as I miss the old movie houses, I confess that the work that Criterion and Home Box Office do with their DVDs is a delight. Until you know Berlin Alexanderplatz and t

he Sopranos, you don't know televis

ion and its potential for aesthetic expression.

Though I own DVDs of these works, you can rent the episodes of the Sopranos for almost nothing. A couple of years ago, I had not seen any of them. I did not expect much, but I was surprised by how outstanding they are. The Fassbinder work I had seen in the eighties on the old Bravo network. I am an ardent fan of his movies. Seeing the series again was a boon.

[Arab Nights (imported)]

As I recall, the evil lady in PuffinStuff was called WitchyPoo

And not Yoli?

[A-1 (imported)]

And not Yoli?

NAW!

We all call Yoli "SEXY"

[bobov (imported)]

I haven't owned a TV for over 30 years, but have started watching the best shows on DVD. I recently completed The Sopranos, and can second your appreciation. The DVD experience is quite different from watching the original series, since the episodes are not separated by months or years. One does notice certain devices the actors use repeatedly, e.g., Tony hunched over his food, Tony's belly filmed from the foot of a bed, etc. Still, the series had greater artistic aspirations than most TV, though the later seasons were often marred, I thought, by a mannered, self-conscious, artistry - probably encouraged by critical acclaim.

Haven't yet seen Berlin Alexanderplatz, because I'm only aware of it as a movie, shown at New York's Film Forum in very long pieces, which I hadn't the patience to sit through. If it can be consumed in smaller bites, I'll rent it from Netflix. What is it's cultural setting? Pre-war Berlin?

Another series I've much enjoyed, and would put on an even higher level than The Sopranos (sorry for this heresy), is The Wire. The final season is still not on DVD, but The Wire offers moral and psychological depth and complexity comparable to the best theater. For just this reason, it was only a modest commercial success - many people couldn't abide seeing the cops and the criminals living in the same moral murk. But it opens a window on our times. The tangled skein of government bureaucracy, politics, police, unions, drug dealers, the underclass, etc., that The Wire weaves, and the personalities who live within it, is an unforgettable education. You compared The Sopranos and Berlin Alexanderplatz to Dickens or Faulkner. I'd say the same about The Wire.

Two other shows I've enjoyed, although not in a league with The Sopranos or The Wire, are Dead Like Me, and Dexter.

[Blaise (imported)]

The Wire is high on my must see list. I may have to wait to see it, but it sounds remarkable.

I agree that the Sopranos did become self-conscious. The viewer becomes a member of the insiders. What I notice as I watch it closely is how well designed the episodes are and how well the entire series works as a unit. The nuances are sometimes broad and sometimes subtle. The entire series is a look at people who are dead or who are moving toward being dead. Meadow is the prime character that reveals this.

The series involved many writers, several directors, and two directors of photography. It does reveal the vision of David Chase and is fairly consistent. It took years to produce it and that allowed for development. I am still studying it and have a long time to go before I make a final judgment. Berlin Alexanderplatz was a series on German television. I saw it on the old Bravo network in the seventies. Criterion has it on DVD. It looks fantastic. There were problems in the original production with color, but I don't really understand what happened. The digital version is lovely. It's hard to summarize it. Fassbinder made it as a 15 1/2 televison series. He wanted to make a film specifically for theartical distribution. The film is based on a famous novel and covers the transition from the Weimer to the Nazi periods.

I have the first season of Dexter. I don't know what to make of it. I like telling people that finally someone has made a television series with a protagonist with whom I can identify. Actually, I don’t really like the character. I don’t know Dead Like Me.

[bobov (imported)]

Why wait for the The Wire? You can rent it from Netflix or similar services, and then there's "pirate television." If you're willing to put up with a fuzzy picture and Chinese subtitles, you can get the shows for free and at once.

I'm "dead or moving toward being dead." So is everyone I know. But I'm curious about Meadow's role in highlighting this. Please expand on what you see. There was a recent academic conference on The Sopranos, a first for a TV show, so it's already climbed to complete respectability.

Berlin Alexanderplatz tempts me, though the transition from Weimar to National Socialism is not immediately interesting. Does it have an interest beyond the historical?

Well, Dexter wouldn't have liked us, either. The series is based on a great joke - the ways in which a serial killer's psychopathology can seem analogous to ours. Dexter has a teen-ager's awareness of the artificiality and insincerity of much social interaction. The cold self-absorption and calculation of his character matches the part of ourselves that we hide from view. Dexter is simultaneously ruled by his passions and by the logic required to successfully indulge his passions. All this makes Dexter a witty commentary on our age dedicated to "the pursuit of happiness." The series does go off the rails when it sometimes overstates the analogy between Dexter and the rest of us. In the second season, the writers try to make Dexter more "likable" by giving him some cuddly normal emotions. This weakens the joke. Still, Dexter is fun, if not outstanding.

Dead Like Me lasted only two seasons, but it's filled with imaginative ideas and delightful characters. Check it out.

[The Lurker (imported)]

The Head Writer on the Sopranos was a Matt Weiner. He is the creator of Mad Men, on AMC. I love both shows! The new season of Mad Med Starts in three weeks!

[Blaise (imported)]

Why wait for the The Wire? You can rent it from Netflix or similar services, and then there's "pirate television." If you're willing to put up with a fuzzy picture and Chinese subtitles, you can get the shows for free and at once.

I'm "dead or moving toward being dead." So is everyone I know. But I'm curious about Meadow's role in highlighting this. Please expand on what you see. There was a recent academic conference on The Sopranos, a first for a TV show, so it's already climbed to complete respectability.

Berlin Alexanderplatz tempts me, though the transition from Weimar to National Socialism is not immediately interesting. Does it have an interest beyond the historical?

Well, Dexter wouldn't have liked us, either. The series is based on a great joke - the ways in which a serial killer's psychopathology can seem analogous to ours. Dexter has a teen-ager's awareness of the artificiality and insincerity of much social interaction. The cold self-absorption and calculation of his character matches the part of ourselves that we hide from view. Dexter is simultaneously ruled by his passions and by the logic required to successfully indulge his passions. All this makes Dexter a witty commentary on our age dedicated to "the pursuit of happiness." The series does go off the rails when it sometimes overstates the analogy between Dexter and the rest of us. In the second season, the writers try to make Dexter more "likable" by giving him some cuddly normal emotions. This weakens the joke. Still, Dexter is fun, if not outstanding.

Dead Like Me lasted only two seasons, but it's filled with imaginative ideas and delightful characters. Check it out.

Thanks for your insightful commentary. I enjoyed reading it. I like your take on Dexter. I especially like the notion of it commenting on "the pursuit of happiness" which I had entirely missed.

I think that agree with you. The flaw in the series is that he is too likable though anti-social people do charm us.

At the end of the series, Meadow dates an attorney who defends one of the corrupt politicians who works with the mobsters. She was always the decent member of the family--the one with promise. She sees her father as a victim of the FBI. I think that is just one little dig from David Chase! Meadow had always seemed decent. I think that she has learned to lie to herself as a means of surviving her family.

I’ve have never rented from Netflex. I have never used a cell phone. Just part of my being out of date. Still, at the moment, I am not quite ready to make the emotional investment in a new series, but eventually I will. I will check out Dead Like Me.

The conceit behind Dexter is the same as the one in Philip Kerr’s novel Philosophical Investigations in which a serial killer designated by psychologists and authorities as Wittgenstein murders other serial killers designated by the names of other philosophers. It’s a decent novel.

Dexter glosses the sadism that the protagonist employs. I have watched the first season several times.