Change Your Image
doritoarmy
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
The Sopranos (1999)
This show isn't for me.
I wanted to love this show. I really wanted to love it, but I can't. Objectively speaking, it is a very good show. I can understand its acclaim, but again it just isn't for me.
The thing that really kills this show for me was the decision to go for the most realistic character arcs possible. I understand that it's realistic, but it also makes this show so unsatisfactory to watch. If it was one or two seasons, I wouldn't be bothered, the show would have made its point. But no, it's six seasons long, with a whopping 86 episodes. There is filler everywhere in this show, and when combined with characters that for the most part aren't changing, that makes for a show that drags and ultimately ends up being a bore for a good amount of its runtime.
At first, the show starts off well with the conflict that Tony has with Livia and Junior, and some interesting conversations with Melfi. Season 1 actually made me very interested in Tony's psyche and I appreciated how his family and criminal life blended together. Unfortunately, the show does not keep up this good streak for long. After season 1, both Livia and Junior are pushed to the sidelines, and the scenes with Melfi essentially devolve into filler scenes where the show slaps the audience in the face with how Tony feels about events going on in his life at the time. Eventually, this culminates in Tony being branded a sociopath and kicked out of Melfi's service. But it's so anti-climatic, the relationship that Tony and Melfi share essentially goes almost nowhere for 6 seasons with a few exceptions, then the show rushes a conclusion to their relationship, by the show outright telling you that Tony is a sociopath. So what was the point of all of those scenes with Melfi? To show that Tony can't change? If so, then you could've made that point, in fewer scenes. The lack of their relationship evolving in any way, means that the scenes stagnate and blend into one. Maybe it's realistic, but it's not interesting to me. As for Livia and Junior, I'm willing to cut the show some slack with Livia because the actress who played her died. Junior though, I feel there is no excuse. For the short amount of screen time that he has, Junior is great. He's one of the most interesting characters in the show for me. But he's also so criminally underused. An example of this is his trial in season 4, for such a big event for Junior, it gets surprisingly little focus in the show, with only a few scenes being delegated to it. (This is part of a larger issue I will get to later.) After his trial, Junior begins to suffer from dementia, and I still like his scenes, particularly in S6 E15, Remember Me. But again, he's so underused, maybe it's due to the age of Dominic Chianese, but still I can't help but feel like there's missed potential with his character.
There you have it, my big issue with this show. The distribution of screen time. Too many scenes on characters who don't need it and too few scenes for interesting characters. Now, I understand that the criminal aspect of Tony's life is his job, so it will obviously get a lot of focus, but come on! I barely remember half the scenes focusing on Tony's crew. I don't care about the 20th crew member who is a liability/disloyal. I don't care about the random conflicts between underdeveloped characters, such as: Silvio being upset that Christopher Columbus isn't recognised as a hero anymore, or Paulie being superstitious, or Johnny being insulted by Ralphie's joke. These are not interesting plots that deserve an entire episode's focus. I just don't care about these characters, out of all of the characters in Tony's crew the only ones that I liked were: Tony, Chris, Puss, Ralphie, Junior, Vito, Tony B and to an extent Bobby. I just don't care about the rest of them. Silvio has nothing throughout the entire show. His entire character is basically just that he is calm, collected and loyal to Tony. He is forgettable. It doesn't help his case that Steven Van Zandt's performance is mediocre at best. So when he is randomly focus on, such as in the aforementioned Christopher Columbus episode, his plots feel like filler, because I just don't care. Paulie is a little better than Silvio at least, as he has more development and often makes things worse for the crew, because of his disloyalty to Tony. Unfortunately, though most of his character development is in the latter half of the show, and by that point it feels like too little, too late. Then you have other forgettable characters like Richie in season 2. Who cares about Richie? The only purpose of his character was to stir the pot. Every scene that he was in, felt like a waste, because you just knew he wasn't even going to last the season, and lo and behold, he dies near the end of season 2. There are so many characters in the crime part of this show like Richie, who are just forgettable, throw-away characters, like Feech or Eugene or Carlo or even Furio. It makes for some of the most boring television I have ever watched, with Coronation Street level acting and constant violence which leaves me questioning how the Tony's crew haven't been arrested years ago. Speaking of which, the fact that the FBI are such a non-threat in this show, really removes a lot of the tension that could have been added whenever characters commit crimes, because lets face facts here, these characters can basically commit any crime they want and just face no legal repercussions whatsoever. One of the first scenes in the show is literally Tony chasing someone down in his car through a crowded area, and then getting out of the car and punching that same person again in front of several witnesses, you're telling me that the FBI doesn't have enough evidence to charge Tony? Rubbish! I just feel nothing most of the time when I watch these characters commit crimes, maybe it's a sign of this show's age, because the violence is not really shocking anymore, but if so then that means that it's aged poorly. I can understand why somebody would like these scenes, but they're not for me.
Really I feel that this show shines with the family drama. I know people hate Meadow and AJ, but honestly they feel like masterful characters in comparison to most of the characters in Tony's crew. I like how Meadow gradually comes to accept the mafia, and becomes a criminal lawyer to help the people that she once condemned. I like how AJ grows up and inherits many of his father's worst traits. These characters are actually interesting, people hate them and I don't understand why. I know I criticised the show for being realistic with its characters arcs before, but I feel that these two characters strike the right balance of being realistic and also being entertaining unlike the most of Tony's crew. There are several great scenes which just involve the family members, such as Tony and Carmella shouting at each other in the season 4 finale or Tony dragging AJ out of bed, or several of the conversations that Tony and Meadow have. Unfortunately, the show doesn't quite reach its full potential with the family dynamics as they are obviously from Tony's point of view, meaning that there isn't much time to examine Carmella's relationship with Meadow and AJ. However, the scenes that focus on them feel like a breath of fresh air in comparison to the cesspool that is Tony's crew. Chris is also a highlight of this show, as he is interesting for all seasons of the show and the deterioration of his relationship with Tony and Adriana is tragic to watch.
As for acting, I have mostly positive things to say. Despite some poor acting in Tony's crew, there is mostly solid acting all around. All of the Soprano family in particular: Tony, Carmella and Junior are great. Chris, Adriana and Paulie are also great. Cinematography, directing and editing is... meh, you can see the show's age, with the mostly dull and uninspired camera shots. There's nothing that's outright bad though, with the exceptions of CGI Livia in season 3 and the infamous bad transition in Cold Cuts. As for comedy, well I didn't think the show was all that funny. The show relied on fart humour occasionally which just made me want to kill myself. The only time I can remember actually laughing is the bad transition in Cold Cuts and some of the scenes where Tony tries to parent AJ. Outside of that, I didn't care much for this show's humour.
Overall, this show is a mixed bag. I liked the family aspect, but detested the crime aspect. I would recommend giving this show a go, but if you don't enjoy the first few episodes, then I wouldn't recommend continuing because it doesn't really improve. I watched it all the way through and I regretted it. You will be able to tell if you will like the show based on the first few episodes. I could tell that I didn't like it, but I gave it the benefit of the doubt and hoped it would improve. But unfortunately, this show just isn't for me. I have nothing against people who like it, undoubtedly it was revolutionary for TV. But as I've said it isn't for me.
The Simpsons: Another Simpsons Clip Show (1994)
Pathetic
There's maybe 10% new animation here, and that is being generous. Many scenes you will just have characters speaking, there is clearly no attempt at lip-syncing at all, and characters are constantly teleporting around the kitchen table. It's just jarring, this is the kind of thing that The Simpsons would make fun of, and yet they just proudly display one of the laziest episodes of TV I've ever seen. Most of this episode is just mind-numbing, you've already seen all of this, so there's literally no reason to watch this episode. At least the season 4 clip show had the April Fools plot with Homer and Bart. This episode is just nothing, it has no reason to exist. Don't watch this episode.
Black Mirror: San Junipero (2016)
Inadequate Episode
This episode just feels completely underdeveloped. As a love story, it's okay, but I don't really care all that much about the characters. However, this barely even feels like a Black Mirror episode. The theme of this episode is immortality, but it barely even feels like it takes a look at this theme. We get brief glimpses of the negatives with Quagmire, but it's hardly anything, they barely go into any detail about the negatives. In addition, Kelly's conflict feels underdeveloped as well, it basically comes up in the last 5 minutes, and I think it finally starts to get interesting, but it's instantly resolved and Kelly decides to go to San Junipero. Yorkie herself barely even feels like a character, she has basically no conflict, and any character growth or development is tied to Kelly, and their 'love', which feels more like an infatuation. The episode has one decent scene, where Kelly scolds Yorkie, for criticising her dead husband, but it's too little too late. This just leaves you with a boring episode, with a decent at best love story, and underdeveloped themes and characters. Overall, this episode just feels like a waste of potential. It's not an episode I enjoy at all.
The Simpsons: Homer the Heretic (1992)
This ain't it.
It's one of the most overrated Simpsons episodes for me. I enjoy the humour quite a bit, but the story is just weak. This episode fails to bring up any valid points about religion. Homer is not wrong in this episode, it's his choice to decide if he wants to go to church or not. Most of the story is just characters obsessively demonising Homer, or them trying to get Homer to "see the error of his ways". It's just frustrating to watch. If this is supposed to be a satire, it sure isn't presented as one. You probably think I'm nitpicking, but this episode just feels painfully dated, I really don't get the hype surrounding this episode. The episode isn't funny enough to make up for the weak story, and poor morals.