When he had the idea for The Sopranos script — mob boss goes into therapy to deal with his overbearing mother — he wanted it to be a movie. The plot would revolve around a suburban New Jersey gangster, Tony Soprano, and the complicated interaction between his professional life and family life as a son, husband and father. It would be a sometimes sensitive, sometimes brutal, very modern take on mob films such as Goodfellas and The Godfather.
Tony Soprano is a mob boss who goes into therapy to deal with his overbearing mother Credit: Alamy. At the time, in the late s, HBO was a pay-cable network known for showing movies, boxing, and the cult favourite The Larry Sanders Show. It wanted cutting-edge, high-quality TV — TV that looked exactly like the kind of films Chase had dreamed of making.
When The Sopranos premiered on the network on 10 January , critics collectively swooned. HBO drew record audiences, and enjoyed a wave of rapturous press and watercooler buzz. It took only a few months for European countries to begin snapping up rights to air the series.
Only Italian audiences — perhaps ironically, perhaps understandably — were reticent about a show featuring a neurotic Italian-American gangster. Arguably, every drama that premiered afterwards bore its mark: plots were instantly darker, heroes were instantly anti-heroes, stakes were instantly higher.
Even comedies adopted some of its hallmarks, including deeply flawed main characters and twisting, highly serialised storylines.
But the TV landscape of the time and changing technology amplified that effect enormously. It was the first transcendent serialized drama that went mainstream. But greatest show of all time? I think not. The Sopranos was a television breakthrough in the same way that camera phones were for mobile devices.
They were both innovative at the time but the method has since been improved. The hallmark of a truly great show, in my opinion, is the evolution of its characters. Audiences are fascinated by change and The Sopranos delivered on that early in its run. Rarely had a major series ever painted their main character in such a violently negative light so quickly.
The Sopranos sunk a half-court shot on a risky premise and an atypical lead read: fat guy. The icing on the cake was that our murdering mobster was secretly attending therapy, trying in many ways to become a better person.
Where We Went Wrong Unfortunately, you can only survive on a steady diet of cannolis and prosciutto for so long. The Sopranos teased fans with the idea of what Tony could be to distract them from what he really was. Whatever whim Tony was feeding in a given episode — doomed flings, power grabs, petty grudges — his linear arcs always ended exactly where you thought they would: there goes another disgruntled goomah and here comes another Tony self-sabotage.
The thing is, you already know this. No one wants to be the buzzkill. Thankfully, I relish the role. That immobility is a potent message in and of itself with a hell of a lot of thematic merit. No murder, no rape, no cops, no criminal conspiracies, no government secrets, no vampires, no superheroes.
Come to Mama. One of the most gripping scenes in the show is about turning off the lightbulb in the refrigerator for Shabbat, and everyone takes him or herself extremely seriously.
I was dazzled. Hulu has a ton of Korean and Chinese series, and lots of Spanish-language shows, too Isabel is a decent higher-end drama. I know you asked for non-English-language shows, but I think you skipped over two anglophone countries with terrific TV offerings: Australia and Canada. An American remake is on its way. Other than scouring best-of list and award nominations, I find new-to-me international shows through performers I like and through GIF sets on Tumblr I find intriguing.
Try not to be too jealous of my extremely glamorous, exciting life spent farting around on random Tumblrs. Already a subscriber? Log in or link your magazine subscription. Account Profile. Sign Out. Photo: HBO.
0コメント