March 11, 2006

• Serial Television: The Sopranos are Back

     

  You woke up this morning
  Got yourself a gun,
  Mama always said you'd be
  The Chosen One.
  
  She said: You're one in a million
  You've got to burn to shine,
  But you were born under a bad sign,
  With a blue moon in your eyes.
  
  You woke up this morning
  All the love has gone,
  Your Papa never told you
  About right and wrong.
  
  But you're looking good, baby,
  I believe you're feeling fine, (shame about it),
  Born under a bad sign
  With a blue moon in your eyes.
  
  You woke up this morning
  The world turned upside down,
  Thing's ain't been the same
  Since the Blues walked into town.
  
  But you're one in a million
  You've got that shotgun shine.
  Born under a bad sign,
  With a blue moon in your eyes.
  
  When you woke up this morning everything you had was gone. By half past ten your head was going ding-dong.
  Ringing like a bell from your head down to your toes,
  like a voice telling you there was something you should
  know. Last night you were flying but today you're so low
  - ain't it times like these that make you wonder if
  you'll ever know the meaning of things as they appear to
  the others; wives, mothers, fathers, sisters and
  brothers. Don't you wish you didn't function, wish you
  didn't think beyond the next paycheck and the next little
  drink' Well you do so make up your mind to go on, 'cos
  when you woke up this morning everything you had was gone.
  
  When you woke up this morning,
  When you woke up this morning,
  When you woke up this morning,
  Mama said you'd be the Chosen One.
  
  When you woke up this morning,
  When you woke up this morning,
  When you woke up this morning,
  You got yourself a gun.

   

  "Woke Up This Morning" Lyrics
  by Alabama 3

  ---

  I've mentioned before that I don't watch television like most folks. I've always sort of been on "the cutting edge" of home theater and electronics, and I was buying movies on videodiscs back in the early 80s. I actually utilized the videotape recorder to time shift television shows, which I watched later, on my own time, fast forwarding through the commercials. Besides taping shows for watching later, I also taped whole seasons for keeps. My first taped television series was in 1985, Steven Spielberg's "Amazing Stories". I still have all the episodes on tape, with vintage 1985 commercials, but I can't watch the series because it's on Beta.

  This Sunday at 9p.m. the emmy award winning HBO series "The Sopranos" returns after a two year hiatus. Even though the series debuted back in the last century, the "new season" is the sixth, because HBO waits for a couple of years between "seasons" sometimes, which is quite frustrating for fans. I never taped the Sopranos, and I never watched the show when it debuted, nor while it was winning a lot of awards. I watched TV shows with Joel in the 90s and early Aughts, but The Sopranos wasn't one of them. I did watch two seasons of HBO's "Carnivale" when it aired, but I never got into Tony's dysfunctional mafia clan, because I never bothered to watch it when it was originally airing. I'm salivating for the premiere of the sixth season this Sunday, however, because I've been able to "catch up" with all five previous seasons thanks to the fact they are all on DVD.

  The makers of expensive videodiscs never tapped into the old television show market, which was the province of videotapes. During the 80s and 90s, as tape prices dropped, and the movie libraries dried up, television shows were available, but weren't popular except for the die hard fans of the shows. With DVD's digital storage and retrieval capabilities, where you don't have to "find" a specific episode by forwarding or reversing, but simply point and click with your remote, there has become a wide audience for buying and watching old series on DVD. "The Sopranos" was one of the first series manufactured on DVD and it became a big hit. Now the TV aisles at Best Buy nearly equal the movie section in space allowed for presentation.

  Back in 1985, besides "Amazing Stories", I taped the "New Twilight Zone", and even some older series from cable, like the WWII documentary series "The World at War". I've got most of "Police Story", a 1970s series created by Joseph Waumbagh, on tape. I was watching these shows pretty much as I taped them. The first serial television show I taped for a whole season before watching any of the shows was L.A. Law in 1986.

  There's a certain feeling you get when you spend a day and watch multiple episodes of a television show, especially a serial show where there are story arcs, like in Steve Bochco shows like L.A. Law. After a while, the familiarity of the opening credit sequence, with it's signature theme, begins to feel like an old friend. Each episode might even bleed into the others, so that at the end of the day, you can't really tell exactly how many episodes you watched, or how many story threads you are keeping up with. I compare it to reading a novel. When you go back to the point at which you "left off" it's like picking up a novel and finding your place.

  In the late 80s, I was a "Twin Peaks" fan and taped both seasons of David Lynch's quirky series. When I lived with Pat in the early 90s, I didn't watch much television, or tape anything much, or even buy videodiscs of movies. But thanks to DVD, I am "catching up" with series like "Seinfeld" of which I have now seen the first two seasons. I keep about four t six television series in rotation on my Netflix site. I'm also watching "Combat" and "Moonlighting". "Combat" from the 60s, is an old television series about WWII which I used to watch with my dad. I never watched "Moonlighting" which shot Bruce Willis to fame, when it aired in the 80s. But I'm a big Bruce Willis fan, so it's really neat to "revisit" him back when he was young and had hair.

  I didn't watch a single episode of the popular current television shows "Lost" or "Desperate Housewives". I rented the DVDs last summer, and when the second season started, I decided to Tivo the new season. (I graduated to personal digital recorders when Tivo was invented a few years ago.)

  I started "The Sopranos" about three months ago, and finished renting the fifth and final season a few weeks ago. Just in time for Season Six, which begins tomorrow night. I even Tivo'd the last four episodes of Season Five, and have been watching them again, just so I'm completely up to date on the plot points when I see the first new episode.

  Currently, I'm also renting and watching HBO's "Six Feet Under", a quirky "dramedy" set in a funeral home, and I'm up to the middle of the fourth season. As I watched "Six Feet Under" I wondered why the mafia on "The Sopranos" doesn't have a funeral home for a front, then when they whack someone, they can immediately creamate the bodies.

  Thanks to DVD's, fine television series, especially those with story arcs like the serialized dramas of which I have mentioned, can find a new audience. I could have watched The Sopranos when it originally aired, but I didn't, and now I can be just as excited about Season Six (the "final" season, plus eight additional episodes to air in 2007) as someone who has been following the series from the beginning.

  "Hill Street Blues", Steven Bochco's pioneering television series from the early 80s, which "invented' the "story arc" in serial television, is out on DVD now. That's my next "project". I didn't watch that show back in the 80s, so now I can "catch up". The neat thing about renting these, is that I can stop immediately if I don't find the show entertaining.

  Well, you'll have to excuse me. I've got to get back to watching the final moments of The Sopranos, so I'm ready for what happens tomorrow night at nine p.m.

  Until then, fuhgetaboutit.

  The Sopranos images are copyright HBO. The composite is one of mine, created this afternoon from images obtained after doing a "Sopranos" image search on Google. The Sopranos link is to the HBO official website. I am playing the original version of the theme song on Jukebox This Week. The links on the Cast List below are from the HBO site.

  Tony Soprano Carmela Soprano Dr. Jennifer Melfi Christopher Moltisanti Junior Soprano Silvio Dante Paulie Walnuts Meadow Soprano Anthony Soprano Jr. Adrianna La Cerva Bobby "Bacala" Baccalieri Janice Soprano Artie Bucco Johnny Sack Tony Blundetto Michele "Feech" La Manna Phil Leotardo Ralph Cifaretto Furio Giunta "Big Pussy" Bonpensiero Richie Aprile Charmaine Bucco Gabriella Dante Rosalie Aprile Hesh Rabkin Livia Soprano Gloria Trillo Dr. Elliot Kupferberg Eugene Pontecorvo Patsy Parisi Vito Spatafore Benny Fazio Carmine Lupertazzi Little Carmine Lupertazzi Little Paulie Germani

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