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I've never watched this show and it's on Prime (I think) so I will try to follow the thread as well.
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Jan 10, 2015 17:29
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I watched the pilot today, and I have to say that if I didn't know it was supposed to be one of the best shows ever I probably wouldn't keep watching. I will admit that I'm not much into gangster / mafia stuff so it's not like I'm sitting in the heart of the demo, but unlike The Wire which grabbed me immediately on a topic I didn't really care about, this pilot seemed more like "here's a good show that's not for me". Because I know so many people like it, I'm willing to keep going. And I'm sure when it premiered it was much more revolutionary television story telling that it seems to be now. Things I liked: + Edie Falco, who is the best character. I wish the show was about her instead of Tony. Her inner life seems much more interesting than his. I don't know if that's because tortured middle-aged men have become a thing SINCE this show, though, so this might be a case where it's hamstrung through no fault of its own by me watching it so late. + The generational tension on both sides of the fence (in the mafia family). Not so much the women's relationships with each other - the mother is funny but will get old soon, and the daughter is just insufferable. But Christopher vs. Tony vs. Jr was cool. + The angle they opened with the therapist potentially getting caught up in this through her husband / boyfriend somehow. I got the impression he was like a lawyer or something but that might not be correct. + The whole thing with the restaurant owner who's such an idiot and they keep trying to protect him from himself and he never figured it out. I liked him, too. + The little son, how chill he is. I worry for his future. Things I didn't like: + Unnecessary violence. If this is a show about this dude's inner conflict, I don't need a guy getting shot in a butcher shop over lines of cocaine. The slyer sides of the violence, like the body disposal, were much more interesting. + The idea of the ducks was a lot better than what the ducks turned out to be. How gloriously weird he was at the beginning with them was something I was hoping would pay off in a cooler way. + It was hard to follow what was going on with the timeline. + The therapist is a bit on the nose. Hope her dialogue gets a little more subtle in the future. Things that were super dated: + No way you could run over a guy and beat the poo poo out of him without 100 of those watching people pulling out their phones. He'd be on YouTube so fast. + Yep, you can show boobs on TV. Cool. + Degenerate!!
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Jan 11, 2015 21:21
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Kristofenpheiffer posted:Season 1 premiered in '99. Youtube didn't exist until 2005. I don't think anyone had camera phones for several more years either. It's a bit unbelievable that it still wouldn't get traced back to him by the license plate or whatever, but that would just go back to Christopher, and who knows if the car was even registered to him. Well yeah, that's why I said "dated". It was something that screamed "this show was made 15 years ago", that's all. It wasn't a criticism. Though EvilTobaccoExec is probably right that even in 1999 people wouldn't have just stood around and watched like they did. Plus a huge HMO probably has security cameras on its campus! On the violence, I've never bought the argument that violence on its own is worthy of shock in a good show. A mediocre show shocks you with how violent something is. A great show shocks you with what the violence of something means. You could make an argument here that it was trying to contrast the light-hearted, novelty-music underscored car violence that Tony perpetrates with the cold, dark violence of the younger generation, and I wouldn't necessarily argue with that. They underscore it a few more times with taking the guy to the bridge with subtle threats, and how Tony originally tries to send the guy on a cruise - the soft touch - and then Christopher blows up his restaurant - the hard touch - but straight up shooting a guy's brains out didn't have enough emotional resonance in a first episode (for me) to make it worth it. I don't know these characters yet. I don't really care about them and their ways, so it stuck out like a sore thumb. It had the same effect for me as when there's some random sex happening in Game of Thrones, just because they want to have something on the screen that people will talk about. A great show doesn't have to do that. It is interesting all on its own. That doesn't mean that violence can't exist in a TV show, and this show will probably have plenty of it! But I hope it gets smarter about it than that.
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Jan 12, 2015 05:03
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