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Sopranos Gets Whacked
What will take its place?
Sunday’s Sopranos finale must go down as the most highly anticipated and minutely dissected moment in the oh so recently fused history of high art and cable television.
The weekend papers were stuffed with obituaries for the show many say redefined the boundaries of the small screen. And on Monday, everyone from ESPN’s pop-riffing super columnist Bill Simmons, to the NY Times’ polymath news blogger Mike Nizza were picking through the remains of the eight year phenomenon. Interest was so high that in the aftermath of the show, HBO's website crashed under the weight of anxious viewers alternately angry, perplexed and saddened by the show's anti-climatic denouement.
Regular Tyee books writer and Sopranos aficionado Charles Demers summed up the feelings of many with a well timed status change on the near-ubiquitous social networking site Facebook on Sunday. “[W]hat kind of world,” he wondered, “allows the Iraq war to continue whereas Sopranos has to end?”
But worry not you cinéastes of the small-screen (is that even possible?), The Sopranos has an heir, at least down south. Writing in these pages last fall, Steve Burgess came off, by his own admission, "somewhat like a guy in a bad suit standing on your doorstep holding a religious pamphlet” in his praise for the Sopranos cable-mate The Wire.
“Fans of The Wire tend toward zealotry,” he wrote, “simply because the Baltimore-based cop series is something of a TV miracle. Creator David Simon wrote the books that provided the source material for the acclaimed series Homicide: Life on the Street, and the HBO miniseries The Corner. But The Wire is Simon's masterpiece.”
But what about in Canada? Is there a show in production north of the 49th that can compete with the narrative depth and character development of the Sopranos, or even that of its HBO offspring like The Wire or Deadwood? How about CBC's Intelligence or CTV's brilliant Ben Mulroney vehicle, eTalk Daily? What are your picks for Canada's Sopranos heirs. And if there are none, why? Post your answers in the comments. ![[Tyee]](http://thetyee.cachefly.net/ui/img/ico_fishie.png){kind=small}
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kootowl
4 years ago
Intelligence
...could be a contender. It's getting a 2nd season, and Chris Haddock is no slouch. The show occasionally lapses into the kind of predictability that is the stuff of USAmerican TV, but hopefully, it'll get past that.
HBO writers like David Milch seem to have a knack for peppering their dramas with unexpected touches of levity and even "sweetness" that get me every time. Think about Jewel's dance scene with Doc in Season Two of Deadwood:"a nimble forest creature..." TV drama writers would do well to take a page from Milch's book and take the stories and the characters seriously without feeling the need to make everything "Serious."
Bobby Peru
4 years ago
Intelligent, but not Innovative
CBC's 'Intelligence' is mildly interesting, but not different, fresh or bold like the Sopranos. Basically, 'Intelligence' takes the viewpoints of the cops and is a conflicted and competitive cop show with accurate wholesale drug prices.
Don't forget that the Sopranos is exciting because the story is told from the viewpoint of criminals with the Feds on the sideline. That is far more exciting than the usual cop show. After all, as all criminals can tell you, the cops are your least dangerous enemies.
There's something about Canadian TV or govt sponsored productions that prevent any edgy and politically incorrect shows from emerging. I mean, just listen to the sometimes racist dialogue on Sopranos. Could you imagine Canandian TV characters slagging on First Nations people?
verso
4 years ago
...
Call me a zealot but The Wire is hands down the best TV I've ever seen. It's novelistic in it's scope, the story line is complex and the charcters engaging. I've heard the next season, the 5th, will be the last -- that will be a sad day.
Frank
4 years ago
CBC
Note that the CBC gets a mention whereas nothing at all is said about the utter lack of anything original or interesting from Canada's private broadcasters, CTV and Can-West.
charlesdemers
4 years ago
Sopranos and the Wire
First: I predict that soon, journalists all over the world will be using my Facebook status as pop-culture barometer.
Second: The Wire is outstanding -- OUTSTANDING -- and perhaps even surpasses the Sopranos in the quality of its social commentary. That having been said, it has nowhere near the literary depth of the Sopranos; none of its potential for juicy deconstruction or close reading for symbolism and allusion.
They are two very different beasts -- I doubt very much that we'll ever have anything to replace the Sopranos.
BC Mary
4 years ago
Getting comfortable amongst the gangsters
Does anybody else feel uncomfortable that so many people have bonded with the Sopranos?
I mean, British Columbia has a problem with organized crime and a multi-billion-dollar illicit, unregulated, profitable drug industry.
I think maybe we should worry a little. Or a lot.
Bobby Peru
4 years ago
Why no BC Pot show? Easy Money Gone Bad.
Then BC Mary, I am simply shocked and perplexed why there is no show centred around the BC Pot business and it's breakoff drug businesses? It's like an elephant in the middle of the room. It'd make a great show: sex, strippers, drugs, bikers, Asian and Indian gangs, money, violence and real human drama of easy money gone bad.
The Americans have "Weeds" which is a very weak version of the real weed story that we see all around us in Beautiful BC! But, for some reason the powers that be in the CBC don't want a weed story even though there's not a single one on the air. Instead, we are dealt moralistic, near stereotype stories of cops and robbers. The closest ambiguity viewers see is the conflicted cop. Why? I think the CBC's govt owners are scared to take on real entertaining stories about how the riches of crime do pay! Up to the point you are busted or killed.
Come on, we don't need to glamorize crime because in Vancouver all of us who choose to open our eyes can see the benefits of marijuana money all around us. Instead, we are left with watered down shows like Intelligence. Whereas we could easily do a rivetting and compelling show like the BC Sopranos that would wow the American viewers. Imagine Tony's mansion being replaced by one in British Properties.
And you wonder why most Canadians turn to American channels for real entertainment. If we dismantled the CRTC and the cable barriers the CBC would be relegated to the kind of public access channel that we saw on "Wayne's World".
Don't bother asking about CTV and the other private channels. They are merely distribution channels for US programming. No way they'll ever become a significant force in programme development.
Yammer
4 years ago
The Perils of Ivan
I'm waiting for someone to make Reid Fleming's favourite television show for real -- it's half an hour of watching someone lie in a coma. Call it Dadaist or perfectly ironic.
There is something close though -- Big Medicine, the new Discovery Channel medical show abuot bariatric surgery. So far it is largely about a guy named Allen lying in bed. I think he nearly sat up in the last episode. I am riveted.
Frank
4 years ago
CBC
Exactly, the best home-grown programming in Canada comes from the CBC.
Don't look to CTV and Can-West. The private sector fails again.
Frank
4 years ago
Yammer
Wow, I was riveted just reading about your being riveted. When and where is that show on?