TV #57 of 2025: The Sopranos, season 5 There’s a strong sense of inevitable fatalism running throughout this penultimate run* of The Sopranos, ultimately rendering it my favorite season yet. I love it when TV is structured around a single cohesive storyline for the year, and while serialization leads to the typical open ends here, …
Tag Archives: The Sopranos
TV Review: The Sopranos, season 4
TV #53 of 2025: The Sopranos, season 4 Another season of this family/crime drama that’s only periodically at its most effective, although the finale does a lot to clarify how the gradual dissolution of the central marriage ought to have been our primary focus all along. Unfortunately, however, the year leading up to that terrific …
TV Review: The Sopranos, season 3
TV #50 of 2025: The Sopranos, season 3 I’ve long heard that episode 3×11 “Pine Barrens” is one of the best individual hours that this show ever produced, and having finally now seen the Fargo-esque caper for myself, I can’t really argue with that designation. Unfortunately, however, the season around it is kind of a …
TV Review: The Sopranos, season 2
TV #44 of 2025: The Sopranos, season 2 Even more so than in its debut, this second run of The Sopranos feels built around its quieter domestic scenes rather than the explosive moments of mob violence that periodically surface to puncture them. Richie Aprile, for example, is instantly recognizable as a certain character type: the …
TV Review: The Sopranos, season 1
TV #41 of 2025: The Sopranos, season 1 I’ve never seen The Sopranos before, but my understanding is that the show is widely considered both great on its own terms and very influential on the television industry at large. (Personally The Americans kept coming to mind as a relevant successor program as I watched this …
The Lesser Joke: book reviews and more 