Sunday, October 17, 2010

The Hit TV Show Sopranos Reviewed

By Christina Warner

Let's say you weren't interested in this show when it first aired... Well, now's the time to give it a chance. Better late than never, right? Sopranos is definitely one of the top tv and movie downloads if you want to catch up on what's been hot for the last ten or so years.

The Sopranos is not a show about gangsters. Well, okay, it is, but more importantly, it's a show about family. The core of the show is not Tony Soprano's job, it's how his job affects his home life with his wife and children, how it affects his friendships and relationship with more distant family members, and even his crew are really just members of his extended family. It's a show about a family man who just happens to loan shark, steal and scam for a living.

Most crime stories are just crime stories. The Sopranos is a very human show about very real human beings. The crime family thing is a big part of it, but it's really only the backdrop, it's what these guys do for a living, it's not all there is to the show. We can relate to everything the characters on this show go through. We haven't all been shot by our best friends, but we've all been betrayed.

With the end of each season, nothing is ever made easier. The characters only have more problems to deal with as the ground under their feet becomes less stable.

The ending is really incredible. Some fans felt ripped off, but those people are missing the point. The Sopranos is not about easy answers, it's about the difficulty of life, how confusing and unpredictable it is. The ending actually doesn't carry any secret meaning at all. That cut to black doesn't mean Tony was whacked, it doesn't mean anything except that the show is over. Life keeps going, even with all the fears and worries we have to deal with, there's no finish line, no easy, climactic ending for anyone.

The show made some important innovations in televised storytelling, sort of as a reaction to reality TV. With fictional television becoming so predictable, people turned to reality TV, and so, to compete, David Chase decided to mix the unpredictability and realism of reality TV with the strong character and story development of fiction, resulting in a show that revolutionized TV and paved the way for shows like LOST and House M. D.

As you watch each episode, remember that, just as in life, the show is full of unanswered questions. Things are never easy to figure out and you never have the whole picture. The show is confusing because life is confusing. Just appreciate it for the characters and the comment it makes on life.

If there's a moral to the story that The Sopranos tells, it's this: Life is hard to figure out, but tomorrow's another day. It's really interesting that, while the specifics may be different, you will see your own life reflected in Tony's more so than you will in most movies or shows where the lead characters have more conventional jobs. That's really the mark of incredible storytelling. If you liked The Cosby Show, The Sopranos deals with, essentially, the same sort of emotional territory. - 40729

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