Every HBO Show, Ranked

[buntyman]

I've got too give this Leftovers a try. Never even heard of it.

[Inspector Norse]

I've got too give this Leftovers a try. Never even heard of it.

I've watched the first two series and it has its moments, but no, I really don't get why some people go batty for it. It's generally quite divisive, I think. Some effective looks at the nature of grief, loss, family, those things, some smart ideas and cinematography, but a lot of really uninolving plotting, annoying characters, undeservedly overwrought scenes and half-baked climaxes.

[Inspector Norse]

Rewatched The Sopranos not so long ago.  It's brilliant and all, so well-observed, but I feel now what I felt then, it lost a lot of its mojo around Season 5, when the pacing became floatier and they repeated the 'bring in new character/character becomes troublesome/kill off new character at end of season' arc one too many times with Buscemi.  Was more impressed than ever with Gandolfini's acting, though.  There's an episode in season 3 in which he's depressed and grieving and over-medicated where he becomes eerily mellow and weak as a kitten with these half-mast eyes that's so well-acted I almost wanted to applaud the TV.

I remember that when I rewatched it, what sunk it for me was the sense that after three or four series they just lost their grip on the plot and started rehashing the same ideas (face from the past comes back to cause trouble for Tony, etc) and meandering.
The dialogue always sparkled, the actors were always perfect, the characters kept developing and making perverse sense, but it became too clear that it didn't really have anything left to give and they were just searching for a way to end it.
And always, the morality and gratuity of it were too, too finely balanced.

I never got that sense with The Wire, for example: even in the last, comfortably weakest series, the ideas and plot were clear and compact. It was just that the one major plot point didn't fit.

[colacentral]

I've watched the first two series and it has its moments, but no, I really don't get why some people go batty for it. It's generally quite divisive, I think. Some effective looks at the nature of grief, loss, family, those things, some smart ideas and cinematography, but a lot of really uninolving plotting, annoying characters, undeservedly overwrought scenes and half-baked climaxes.

I think you should watch the third, final season of The Leftovers. You might as well since you've got that far already and it's significantly better than the first two. I'd agree that it's not that good if I'd only seen the first two seasons but by the end of season three it had fully won me over - the final few episodes in particular are belters and it has one of the all-time great series endings.

The first season is pretty bad though and I'm hesitant to recommend the show as you have to get through that dross to get to the good stuff.

I completely disagree about The Sopranos too - yes, the superficial mob plotting was fairly repetitive but it got better and better as it went on: funnier, deeper, better acted, better directed. And the final 9 episodes are pretty much perfect.

The first season is easily the worst; the second is very good but doesn't reach the depths of pathos or humour that later seasons do; and season three is too messy for me to consider it amongst the best, without much of an overarching plot to bring it together. From season four onwards though it's a well oiled machine though.

I think another important thing that happens as the show goes on which makes it seem better and better to me is that the side characters get more time to shine and develop: Phil Leotardo, Carmine Jr, Johnny Sack, more time with Paulie and his mother, etc. I find when I rewatch from the beginning that I'm often missing the huge ensemble of great characters from later seasons, particularly in the first season where even the likes of Paulie and Silvio aren't quite what they would become.

[Pearly-Dewdrops Drops]

I absolutely love The Sopranos but I also think the criticisms of it in this thread are totally legitimate. Without meaning to sound like a high-brow contrarian, I think this is evidence that dramatic television really is just an inferior artform than, say, film. It's incredible difficult or perhaps impossible to sustain a flawless narrative over 10-100 hours without slipping or throwing in weak plotlines.

There are countless movies that I consider truly flawless. All of the best dramatic TV shows immediately bring to mind numerous flawed elements.

[colacentral]

I completely disagree with that too, as TV shows, particularly The Sopranos, are able to dig much deeper into their characters and themes and in a more nuanced way, not constrained by having to "go big" with the drama as much as films are.

I absolutely love The Sopranos but I also think the criticisms of it in this thread are totally legitimate.

And I think the defence of it is legitimate. You made an unfavourable comparison to the Avon / Stringer story on page one, claiming that the Sopranos never reached that level of pathos, and I think that's not only untrue but that The Sopranos did it time and time again - Tony capitulating and killing his cousin after almost starting a war over it; Tony's haunting dream about approaching the ghost of his mother in some spooky house, and his dreams about all the people he's killed; Tony asking Junior if he loves him and Junior being unable to respond; Melfi telling Tony "No" when given a chance to get revenge on her rapist; Bobby holding his daughter after being forced to kill someone due to Tony having petty revenge on him, essentially damning his soul; Meadow's gradual selling of her soul to the mob, particularly moments like her denial of who really killed Jackie Jr; and so on.

And the claim that it "occassionally hinted at Tony's inner conflicts" - it's literally what the entire series is about.

I'd highly recommend reading The Sopranos Autopsy site for really good in-depth articles on every episode. The AV Club reviews by Todd Van Der Werff are pretty good too.

The Wire is good but everything that it's about is right there on the surface and easy to pick up on on a first viewing - it's narrative / plot driven and doesn't invite much ambiguity. The Sopranos on the other hand is all about soul searching and ambiguous philosophical questions, something it doubles down on in the later seasons, and why I dismiss criticism of the plot's repetiton, as the plot is just there to facilitate the character moments. That's why it's so rewatchable and why there are so many great articles and books picking it apart; whereas The Wire, being so clear on what it wants the viewer to think, doesn't seem to have that same level of dedicated analysis. The Sopranos is great TV art, whereas The Wire is a political statement, almost a docudrama.