Why I Still Miss The Sopranos

Why I Still Miss The Sopranos

Tony Soprano, Dr. Jennifer Melfi, Paulie Walnuts. These are perhaps some of the greatest characters to come off of the small screen in history and they are all from HBO’s hit television series, The Sopranos. In 1999, The Sopranos changed television as we knew it. It finally established television as a medium to combat cinema. People could get rich, provocative, and moving stories without ever leaving the comfort of their own home. Every Sunday night, viewers could tune in and spend an hour with the penultimate TV family, and for many people, this was the highlight of their week. Deadwood, The Wire, True Blood, Six Feet Under, the list goes on. None of these would exist had it not been for The Sopranos. People across the globe would keep their Sunday nights booked for HBO, and thanks to The Sopranos, they still do.

Before The Sopranos, viewers could get their mafia fix from films like THE GODFATHER, GOODFELLAS (which features four Sopranos cast members), and CASINO. The problem with these films was precisely that they were films. You could tune in for a few hours, but after that it was over. The characters came in and out of you life within a day. With The Sopranos, viewers were given continuing story lines that could carry on for years. For seven years, The Sopranos became members of our family. We cared about Tony’s health, his marriage to Carmella, and whether or not his daughter would ever figure out how to park a car. These were real people, with real problems. They were deeply flawed, just like many of us.

In 2007, when The Sopranos ended, viewers were awestruck. Not only because of the highly debated and ambiguous ending, but because these characters were leaving our lives, and we didn’t know what to do about it. For me at least, Tony, Carmella, and Dr. Melfi were like members of my family, and when the show ended it was as if I lost a group of very dear friends. Call me an obsessive, but I’m sure there has to be people who feel the same way. For years, many speculated that series creator David Chase would return to the show, much like David Lynch’s recent decision to revive Twin Peaks twenty-five-years after the finale, but with the death of James Gandolfini, this is no longer possible.

Each Sunday night I still turn on the television to get my fix. We have shows like Mad Men, True Detective, Breaking Bad, The Affair, and Homeland. All harrowing and engrossing dramas, but they can never compare to The Sopranos. Six Feet Under came close, but nothing can ever fill the void left by The Sopranos.

The complete series of The Sopranos is available now on Blu-ray from HBO.