The Sopranos: Season 1

I watched eight volumes of Seinfeld DVDs between last February and last June. And I'm about to follow the same pattern for another much-acclaimed classic TV show, The Sopranos. Going in, I worried that hype would do the same bad things for this show that it did for the first season of The Wire for me. But that just wasn't the case as I thoroughly enjoyed the first season of this iconic HBO series and found it extremely watchable. That doesn't say much about The Wire, but I've griped about that show before and probably will again. For now, let's focus on The Sopranos - but not too much, obviously, as I'll have another six future posts about the remaining seasons. Tony Soprano is a capo (middle management, if you will) in the Italian-American Mafia. But he's also a father, husband, and son. A big dynamic in this first season is the balance Tony must maintain between his home life and his working life. They often intersect, of course, as Tony's uncle is the mob boss and his children view Tony's associates as their own uncles. One thing I noticed as the season unfolded was that I began to like Tony more and more. At first, Tony was often a cruel and heartless mobster, as well as an unfaithful husband, and I had to ask, "why are we rooting for this guy again?" But as some story arcs took shape and Tony began to run into serious trouble, it was easy to do so. Perhaps he's just a charismatic guy in spite of his blatant immoral lifestyle. Regardless, Tony is certainly one of the most interesting characters I've seen on television, and if he continues to develop and grow throughout the next few seasons (which I fully expect him to do) then I'd absolutely put him up there with Don Draper and Walter White. And speaking of Don Draper, I think it's noteworthy that Mad Men show runner Matthew Weiner served as a writer and executive producer for The Sopranos, as did Boardwalk Empire creator Terence Winter; some of today's best TV has a shared lineage rooted in The Sopranos. It's kind of like the coaching tree spawned by Bill Belichick's early '00s Patriots dynasty except that the Browns, Broncos, pre-Ryan Jets, and Notre Dame Fighting Irish have all completely sucked. Anyway, I enjoyed this first season a lot and expect the rest of the series to be just as potable. I'll be watching them sporadically, I'm sure, but that rough February-June Seinfeld timeline seems like a good model for the way this series unfolds.