As with most of the series that I’ve chosen to flashback to, writing about The Sopranos frightens me. How in the world is it possible to reflect on the magnitude of this work in just a (relatively) short post?

There’s only one place to start: this 86-episode opus, which spanned eight and-a-half years, and six (or five, and one in two parts) seasons, was a giant. While we spend the rest of this reminiscence dissecting, never lose sight of that fact. A giant.

I wasn’t a fan from the beginning. In fact, I think I consciously kept my distance, because I found it insulting that television would try and trample on the sacred grounds of The Godfather and Goodfellas. But my father-in-law (back when he was just my very longtime girlfriend’s father) would always tell me how great a series The Sopranos was. His favorite parts were Tony’s (James Gandolfini) sessions with Dr. Melfi (Lorraine Bracco), as he, himself, is a Freudian psychoanalyst. I know, right?

Needless to say, I enjoyed that aspect of the show least, but it was one particular encounter that my father-in-law relayed to me that finally got me to check out the show: when Dr. Melfi is raped, and she determines, in the end, not to tell Tony about it. I so disagreed with my in-law’s position that she made the right decision that I needed to see it for myself, in order to properly articulate my argument. I disagree with him to this day, but he got me hooked. Thanks for that. Read the rest of this entry »

I’ve been covering The Wire in my Jane After Dark column at TV Squad, and I can’t help but think about the similarities to another favorite HBO show: The Sopranos. They’re both edgy and well-written and filled with knock-out characters, but they’re also very different. Here’s my rundown on these two top-notch shows:

Reality vs. Storytelling. The Sopranos is an awesome example of great storytelling. We’ve got the panic-plagued mobster dealing with his biological family and his mobster family. What could be better? I know there are people like Tony Soprano out there, but to me, The Sopranos is just a really good story.

The Wire, on the other hand, is so real that you feel like you”re watching a documentary. I’m into season three now and just noticed that there’s no soundtrack, no music at all (yeah, it takes me a while). It’s like someone is following these guys around with a camera.

Good Guys vs. Bad Guys. The Sopranos is mostly centered on Tony Soprano and his thugs and family, while The Wire gives equal time to thugs and the cops, with some politicians and dockworkers thrown in (as mentioned, I’m just into season 3, so haven’t gotten into the school system or press yet). I guess you could say that Stringer Bell, Avon Barksdale and Omar Little are the Tony Sopranos of The Wire; Stringer’s got his real estate business, and Tony’s got his sanitation business. But that’s not quite right either.

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I’m not a fan of the show (though I’ve hidden it well, right?), so clearly these things don’t sit particularly well with me, but what in the world is with this ridiculous storyline on Nurse Jackie? Grace (Ruby Jerins) may have some sort of emotional (or whatever) problems, so Jackie and Kevin are called in to discuss options for therapy and medication?

Sure, the show’s been “building” towards this, but are we meant to feel sympathy for a mother whose focus is so stretched? Or for a woman who deals with life and death at work, and must now worry for her daughter on top of that?

Or, should we just be disgusted with the whore who gets disgusting text messages (“me so horny”) from her lover while she’s with her husband? So much so that she gets a second “cheater” cell. Wow! What a symbol of the modern-day woman! So evolved. So much growth. Read the rest of this entry »

The good news on Nurse Jackie is that there are characters to root for: O’Hara (Eve Best) and Zoey (Merritt Wever) make for an excellent pairing. The bad news? Jackie’s (Edie Falco) still around. Pop goes the weasel!

Jackie is just so disagreeable as a person. More than that, she’s detestable, disgusting, and completely un-desirable. What are people seeing in her?

Anything and everything that she does and discusses with her husband, Kevin (Dominic Fumusa), rings hollow, since we know that she spends her days cheating on him with Eddie (Paul Schulze). Her bald two-faceness is so shockingly brazen that I can’t believe that she feels any real emotion for her partner in life. How could she? Read the rest of this entry »

That’s right … today’s lesson from Nurse Jackie? Crush the pills, put the powder in empty sugar packets, and simply add to your coffee all day long.

For those who thought the pill particles were bad enough, along comes the slow-mo pouring of the sugar packet, or whichever supplement it was. Great use of cinematography!

As bad as that was, the most disturbing part of the second episode for me was the deja vu I experienced during the opening scene, where Jackie (Edie Falco) is cutting Kevin’s (Dominic Fumusa) hair in the kitchen. Anyone else see the pilot of Malcolm in the Middle in there? No? Just me, I guess.

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As you may have guessed from my series preview, I’m not a huge fan of Nurse Jackie. However, due to numerous factors (one of which being my fear of Debbie), I feel an obligation to keep up appearances.

In reality, while a lot about Nurse Jackie bothered me, as I said before, something still kept me watching through six preview episodes. Re-watching the pilot brought some ideas to mind as to why. Here’s one: I want to understand why the show does the things it does.

So, no, I won’t spend the entirety of my posts complaining. Instead, I have questions to pose, and I’m hoping that someone out there has some answers. Because, not only do I don’t, but I don’t think the series is going to provide them for me any time soon. Here’s what I got. Read the rest of this entry »

From the people who brought us such light fair as Californication and Weeds, comes Nurse Jackie. Well, okay, not the people, but the network. That’s right: Showtime’s back at it again, with a new show and another star: Edie Falco.

After a wild ride on The Sopranos, and a rather questionable one on 30 Rock, Falco returns as the titular Nurse Jackie, caregiver extraordinaire in the ER at a fictitious New York Hospital, in this case, All Saints. She’s a been-there-done-that, no nonsense kind of lady, who also happens to be one of the most depraved human beings on television today. Tony Soprano, meet your independent wife.

I wish I were joking, or at least exaggerating, but by the middle of the pilot episode, I already saw Falco trying to be Mini-Me to James Gandolfini. And, she falls short not just because she’s not his equal as an actor, but also because, while Gandolfini’s Tony Soprano did all that he did as a mobster, Falco’s Nurse Jackie is who she is as a nurse. An RN doesn’t ignore a choking woman in a restaurant just because her lunch hour is ticking away.

I’d like to get into more of a specific review, so, for those of you who will kill me with a spoon for ruining the show for you, I’m going to sum up now, and follow with some general observations that I made, non-spoilery (I’ll let you know where to stop). Read the rest of this entry »