Feb 27, 2006
The Sopranos are Back
Don’t forget that the new season of The Sopranos starts March 12th. I’ll be watching all its usual grittiness in HD splendor.
I know – its not exactly a family show, but I’m an Italian that grew up in NJ, and some of the characters in the show remind me of characters from my childhood. I swear Paulie Walnuts is my “Uncle” Vic and I don’t even want to talk about the flashbacks that Livia gave me… 
My Dad, who is 100% of Italian descent, won’t watch the show. I, being more of a mutt of Western Europe, have no such challenges. Honestly, what I enjoy about the show is how it is about the characters more than anything else. For a good outline of why that’s important, read these two articles from my brother’s blog. You’ll never look at entertainment the same way…
Anyway, The Sopranos only USED to be the darkest show on television – that title now belongs to Deadwood.
They’re finally back, after what, like 2 years? In any case, it seemed that long. I can barely remember the last season.
I watched the first few episodes of Deadwood, and wasn’t too impressed. It seemed almost *too* dark for my tastes, with few, in any, redeeming characters. Also, the swearing seemed WAY over the top (and I’m not the first person to mention this, either- they drop the F-bomb like it’s going out of style).
True enough Jason, true enough… I wasn’t so hooked on Deadwood for the exact reasons that you mention. Then I found out that it is based on a lot of historical stuff – characters are taken from actual town figures, as well as names and some of the plot. They scoured old newspapers and court records, personal diaries, etc. to come up with a lot of it.
That piqued my interest long enough for me to start to appreciate some of the characters – I wanted to know what happened to them. The swearing does indeed get old, but I try to overlook that. Makes you wonder if things were indeed like that in the rough frontier – I don’t know, but I do know some groups of people that still talk that way.
Did you watch Rome at all?
No, but I’ve been meaning to. Rome comes highly recommended from my favorite historian, Victor Davis Hanson. What is it like exactly? Does it cover any famous battles like Cannae or the Teutorberg Forest?
It doesn’t get much into the battles at all, but rather talks mostly about the polictical intrigue, etc. surrounding some of them, like when Caesar finally destorys Pompeii’s army, etc.
It is also quite a foul mouthed, sometimes a bit more sexually explicit than one would have preferred, but they were indeed a hedonistic culture, so it may be fairly accurate.
Anyway, again, as HBO has done many times, they do very well with the characters, and you do really end up caring what happens to these people.
Certainly worth watching, in my opinion.