My Review of "The Sopranos: Season One"

The Sopranos: Season One came out back in 1999. It used to be one of the most talked about TV series out in the early 2000s. I remember people talking about this show as if it was Game of Thrones back in the day. Incidentally both shows are HBO exclusive titles.

Back in the early 2000's HBO wasn't a huge thing in Canada though. Back then we were just starting to catch up with getting online with the Internet and a lot of us still didn't have cell phones at the time. I think I got my first cell phone back in 2004.

I can relate to this TV show because I remember the time when it was being aired. I understand a lot of the slow moving rumor mills that happened back in those days. Today this series actually becomes a little bit more relatable because now I'm closer to the main character, Tony Soprano's, age.

The start of this season is a bit slow. I admit I had tried to watch this TV series a while back and I just couldn't get into it. It begins with the death of a fellow mobster. Tony is trying to get a grip on the grief he felt from the loss of his this member. He has a hard time coping with the loss as all of the mobsters are pretty much family.

His anger and frustration has caused him to have delusions and it's starting to affect his day to day activities. Even worse his mother is on his case all the time. He's frustrated with the stresses in life. His mother needs him, his immediate family need him and his mobster family need him. Obviously he has to keep the mobster side of the family in secret so he can't talk to anyone about the crazy things he's seen.

These stresses are so immense that he's forced to find professional help. Today this isn't an issue but back in those days it was a sign of weakness. In a way it still is but not to the same stigma as it was back then. To make matters worse, the mobster mentality double stigmatizes professional help as weakness in leadership. Now with his new situation he has to keep even more secrets from specific people.

So there's two main stories going on at all times. One side of the story is Tony's mobster family. He has to deal with all of the crazy drama within the mob's hierarchy and trying to appease those that have high egos. It's a touchy situation for him because everyone seems to have big egos in his mobster family. Even though they're close as members they're not willing to discuss certain things with one another so they're far apart from one another in certain aspects. Tony constantly has to tiptoe his way around the political matters within his own mobster family.

Then there's Tony's immediate family. He has to make sure that everyone in his family is protected and provided for. In his pursuit of providing for his family with his mobster business he doesn't realize he's losing his connection to the family. People are getting older and it's not so simple to take care of older members of the family.

All this is cleverly connected with his conversations with his psychologist. She is pretty much the rational thinker of the whole situation. The whole show is somewhat Freudian. There is definitely an Id, Ego and Superego. The people in need are the Id, aka Tony's two families. Ego would be Tony living his reality and then the superego would be the psychologist who gives Tony some moral understanding.

The beauty about this TV show is that it feels so real. I could see a lot of the situations that happen around Tony actually happening because all of the characters in this show react realistically or at least how you'd think people would actually react. There's a sense of authenticity throughout the season where you start to wonder if this is actually a fictional story or something that's based on true events.

Overall, I feel like I got into this TV series at the right time in my life. Now that I'm similar ages to Tony's character I understand and can see the frustrations that he endures throughout the season. Much of the authenticity of this show make me reflect on my own actions at times. I have to give this TV series an 8 out of 10. It's a slow start but slowly it actually sucks you and and turns you into a fan.