Bada Bust
Please tell me that something really did go bad on my DirecTV last night at about 10... that Sopranos godfather David Chase didnt competely disrespect his audience w/that lousy, inconclusive ending to The Sopranos' 8-year run...
Are you with me? I've read what a wonderful, ambiguous ending it was. Create your own meaning! No thanks. Unless you are a TV critic with a Masters of Fine Arts and see hidden meaning in a Jackson Pollock paint throw, what it was was tired writers with failed imaginations, bringing a great show to an awful ending.
Real life might be ambiguous. TV demands closure. Do not take me for an eight-year ride to be back where I started. Personally, I thought The Shield had overtaken The Sopranos a few years ago. In Chase's creation, character development had begun to overrule plot advancement to such an extent, the show became listless. Meantime, Sean Ryan's The Shield managed both. It didn't quite have the acting or the the writing of The Sopranos, but it compensated with intriguing and action-juiced episodes, week after week. It delivered in a way the Sopranos did not, right up to the end.
posted by Paul Daugherty at 7:47 AM
15 Comments:
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Post a Comment*Characters create plot. If plot spawns the characters, then you get mess like 24. Give me a well developed character over a senseless plot any day. If characters are well put together and their objective is known, then your plot lives with the characters.
I completely agree. First, they make us wait a ridiculous amount of time between seasons and then they end it without an ending. Meadow, are you okay?
Kill Your Television.
But Sopranos is not TV, and that's the point. It's better than TV. Chekhov doesn't have an ending. And, hell, Huck Finn has about the worst ending ever. So Sopranos is in good company.
The Sopranos isn't the Cosby Show or Friends. It's not supposed to get wrapped up neatly. I agree that Chase could have made a great last episode where Tony dies or gets indicted or whatever, but he chose to stick to his guns and not turn this show into the NBC sitcom it never was. God bless him for it.
If we are going to discuss characters and the development of them throughout the course of a series' run, please allow me to introduce a series' that I feel is on its way to the top, very similar to the way The Sopranos grew.
While it is a network show, as opposed to cable, I still believe the characters have become incredibly well developed, thus spawning intriguing episodes. I compliment the writers. I am speaking of Lost.
Just finishing its third season on ABC, Lost began with a handful of characters that introduced the show's main plot. Since, it has brought to life a handful more characters that have done nothing but increased the show's vitality.
Of all network shows considered dramas, outside of reality crap, it appears to me Lost has a stronghold on a very diverse audience. This aside from Grey's Anatomy and Desperate Housewives, both of which have an audience mostly of women.
The viewers - US - were whacked as Meadow walked into the restaurant.......and, we never saw it coming.
Life went on for Tony and it was a perfect ending to a great series.
Unless you are a TV critic with a Masters of Fine Arts and see hidden meaning in a Jackson Pollock paint throw . . .
Are you really that much of an anti-intellectual, Paul? I find it difficult to believe that you are; you write too well for that kind of mindset. I think you're playing to your WLW audience.
Paul, I was looking forward to your take. Let me pose an alternate theory however, that might help you with your closure.
I thought it was pretty obvious that Tony was killed and I have two reasons why.
In an episode earlier in the series a character asked Tony what he thought it would be like to be whacked. (I can't remember who but I remember they were fishing) Tony said, it wouldn't be anything, it would just be total darkness. Which of course was exactly what the end of the episode was, completely sudden darkness.
Also, I found it quite curious that there was no music during the credits. A small point maybe, but perhaps that was a cue that Tony's world really had ended.
I'd be curious if any of these things caught other people's attention. I thought it was very interesting that the whole show was looking at the world through Tony's eyes, and if that was what the show was really about, then this was the only way to really show his death: what it would have been like for him.
Plus they are going to make millions on the sale of the DVD so everyone can hear the commentary.
Nathan, I believe that to be true. However, I think Tony got whacked. Usually the camera follows what Tony is looking at. However, all action ceased at the sound of the entry chime, and then a black out. This leads me to think he was shot, ala Phil, in front of his family. Also, did anyone recognize the supposed "hit man"? And, weren't the Soprano's supposed to meet someone else at that restaurant?
It was masterful television. It was the quintessential shaggy dog story. David Chase led us all on a merry chase through our own expectations and preconceived notions of how the show should or would end, as Doc's original post here is a great example of. Then he exposed us all for how silly we were all being.
CLASSIC shaggy dog story. And well done. One would think someone as old-school as Doc would appreciate that.
I'm not a smart man. I dont care that some people thought the cat was actualy Adrainna (Or Chris), I dont care that the guy in the diner, that went into the bathroom, had an errie connection with "the Godfather" movie scene. The Show ended, the family was alive and.......
This was kind of like watching Part one of the lord of the rings, without part 2 or 3 on the horizon. Big Bummer in my eyes.
C'mon, Doc - you're better than the typical american tv watcher who needed to have the slow-motion shoot-out to end the series... aren't you?
Also, there's a reason nobody hears national sports-talk radio shows dedicating their entire show to the previous night's "Shield" episode (as they did Sunday night's "Sopranos"). Please stop comparing the two shows - there is no comparison.
Doc,
It is Bush's fault!
I thought you said you barely know how to use a computer and don't have cable, making us believe you are this non new-tech kind of guy. Oh, I guess satellite is not cable and you just mis-lead us. I thought only GOP presidents did that.
Guess we will have to watch the movie to find out what happened !
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