In West Philadelphia… Yeah, I would put some cash on it right now that you finished that line in your head, as everyone would. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme is just one example of the memorable music that used to accompany the opening credits of a TV show. But as of the last decade, theme songs have disappeared along with the antennas and fat backs on your living room TV. A properly composed theme song — exemplified in shows like Moesha by Brandy, Living Single by Queen Latifah, and As Told by Ginger by Macy Gray — once had the power to resonate with viewers more than the plot of any mission the characters carried out on the show. 

Aside from the nostalgia they brought, bonding you to the memory of the show, the fact that these themes were coming from some of our favorite artists took them to a new level. It was like your CD player would come to life as you heard TLC float across the opening theme for All That, or Destiny’s Child and Solange adding their gospel to The Proud Family theme song. Although artist-created theme songs are less common today, out of the method, we got some of the best theme songs of all time. So as I both urge and challenge you to remember your own favorite, let’s take a look at how the consistency has shifted. 

“If you have the right theme song, that’s another way and a missed way these days, of directing people to a show. There are folks that know about a song that have it in their head, and then find out that it’s part of a show afterwards,” Kurt Farquhar, theme song composer for Cousin Skeeter, Moesha, and The Proud Family, explains. 

Destiny’s Child during “Survivor” promo – George De Sota/Newsmakers/Getty Images

In 2001, Destiny’s Child was riding a tsunami-sized wave of popularity. Fresh off of their legendary Writings on the Wall sophomore album, a project that landed them in TLC’s territory as one of the best selling women groups of all time, and their new installation Survivor, Destiny’s Child was at their peak as a collective. Even though they had several charting songs that added to their legacy, The Proud Family theme song in collaboration with Solange would instantly be another one of those numbers. When executive producers Bruce Smith and Ralph Farquhar heard the original theme that Kurt had written, they knew that they could go after someone “big” to execute the vision. And right away, they realized that enlisting Destiny’s Child was the right decision.

“The girls came into the studio one day and we just did the whole thing in an afternoon. We knocked it out, and it was just an incredible job. I remember back then, in those days, so many people used to talk about how the young singers didn’t really sing, and that they weren’t this and that. And all I could talk about after that theme was, ‘Well, you’re not talking about Beyonce…’ because they all came in and turnt this thing out every which way the sun laid,” Farquhar says.

The Proud Family theme song turned out to be a straight hit, so much so that Disney ended up releasing the full track to be featured on the network during commercial breaks. In addition to bolstering the legacy of the show, having a household name allowed for the fans of Destiny’s Child and Solange to be brought in directly — a benefit that Coolio noticed as well when he made the theme for Kenan & Kel.  

“That persons fans are going to come in right away, and they know if ‘so and so’ did the theme song, that’s a million fans or whatever that person’s core fan base is. You got those people right away. And I think that’s what makes it important,” Coolio says. 

Alongside the network benefits, the recruitment of major singers and rappers also had an effect on their careers as artists. Back in the prosperous days of physical music sales, once your album or song cracked the top 10 on the charts, how impactful could a 30-second theme song really be? Well, some of these theme songs were just as big as their biggest hits, apparently. When you add the millions of kids and teenagers that tuned into Nickelodeon for Kenan & Kel, or even those who are watching the show now as a throwback, the theme song pivots them to search for an artist like Coolio, hear the music in his catalogue, and keep his legacy alive. 

“I think the theme song of Kenan & Kel was just as important as “Gangster’s Paradise” or any other one of my big songs. Actually, maybe even more important because it introduces me to a whole new generation of kids and fans year after year,” Coolio says. 

Keenan and Kel during Nickelodeon’s Coolio shoot – Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, Inc/Getty Images

Theme songs, even in full length, would typically last no longer than 45 seconds at the max, leaving no room to fumble your attention. Yet now in the scope of modern television, both artist-created and longer length theme songs are nearly nonexistent, replaced with a quick graphic backed by one of the many songs that are featured in the episode. This is a method we’ve seen in shows like Atlanta, Insecure, and Euphoria. Rich Tuttobene, who worked as a music composer for All That, thinks this is a result of shows moving at a faster rate. “I think in one way that in everything else, pacing has become quicker. The length of content has become shorter,” Tuttobene says. 

Instead, new shows have opted to put their energy toward implementing modern day music. There’s an obvious increase in how much music is available, allowing for people to find something that’s in line with their musical taste. Knowing that, shows like Insecure are putting theme songs low on the list of priorities in hopes to keep people’s attention. Choyce Schwartz, theme music composer for Insecure, says that nowadays, people just want to get right into it. But in addition to that, focusing on the music carried throughout the show rather than before it has a better effect.  

“For us, I think it just has to do with Insecure just really wanting the theme music to not be so redundant and repetitive and just give different energy, because honestly, if you look at each episode or each theme in each season, the music always plays a role on the characterization, and the theme of what’s to come out of that show,” Schwartz says. 

If placed appropriately, music allows for the scene to have a larger effect than the dialogue. The way music can seamlessly fit into the narrative of a scene has become a fulfilling intention of the show. The latest instance of this new focus has come on Sam Levinson’s Euphoria which has led to music-focused post-release conversations with every episode. Bryant Furhmann, music editor of Euphoria, recalls the entirety of the carnival sequence in episode four and the club sequence that occurs toward the end of episode seven as accomplishments of this idea. 

“In the carnival, it’s this strangely sometimes tense/weird circus music that sometimes just sits in the background but other times is fully featured in the forefront, sometimes underscoring the moments, others barely noticeable. In the club, it’s this massive track combined with the insane visuals that all come together to create this experience. If you strip out the music, or it’s something more generic, I don’t think it lands as strongly. Perhaps the visuals are striking, or the plot intriguing, but I don’t feel like it would all come together as this cohesive moment without the music,” Furhmann says. 

More new shows have adopted similar methods to that of Euphoria and Insecure, hoping to stay afloat in the world of pop culture. But every show doesn’t jump on the bandwagon. Some shows still do use artist-created theme songs but even then, according to Kurt Farquhar, the time slot is so short that it essentially becomes worthless.

Sam Levinson and Zendaya at Euphoria FYC – FilmMagic/FilmMagic/Getty Images

“Today, the average theme song is five seconds. And so, when it’s under that sort of criteria, it’s hard and it’s almost not worth it to go after a major artist to do a major theme song,” Farquhar says. 

Approaching the 2010s, networks and executives believed that theme songs should go away completely, meaning that now, even a five second theme song is a rarity. Some new school shows like Power are reminiscent of the old days. But even then, enlisting a high caliber artist in today’s age has the opposite effect as it once did. In fact, the internet laughed when 50 Cent recruited Trey Songz for the new Power theme song. 50 changed the theme back almost immediately, further proving the change in times.

For the classic theme songs we do have, looking back at those of the 1990s and 2000s provides a sense of nostalgia and appreciation. Full length artist-created theme songs certainly don’t exist like they used to, but there’s always room to keep old traditions alive. 2020 will either show the return of artist-created theme songs or confirm the disappearance of them. But similar to Cortez’s, vinyls, and All That, some old things just deserve a comeback.

This week's episode of Power, entitled "Reversal Of Fortune," presented viewers with the calm before the storm. After the violence and the emotional ups and downs of last week's episode, Courtney Kemp slowed things down a bit. Hopeful politician Rashad Tate took the mainstage in "Reversal Of Fortune." The clock rewinds back to the moment that St. Patrick and Tate split ways, and we witness the enraged politician have a night out on the town. In a drunken stupor, he puts a hit on Ghost which leads to a guest-starring role for Cedric the Entertainer. Viewers saw Cedric (who is named Croop in the show) get killed by Tommy before the mid-season break, and now Power illustrates how it reached that point. 

Andre 3000 has made clear that his heart isn’t in music at the moment, aside from when he’s playing the flute in random locations. In a recent appearance on Rick Rubin’s “Broken Record” podcast, the OutKast member said, “I haven’t been making much music, man. My focus is not there, my confidence is not there. I tinker.. I tinker a lot. Like I would just go to my piano and just sit my iPhone down and record what I’m doing. Move my fingers around. I haven’t been motivated enough to make a serious project.” 

Andre’s artistic inclinations seem to be pulling him towards acting instead. He will appear in AMC’s forthcoming mystery series, Dispatches From Elsewhere, which premieres on March 1. The show is created and executive produced by Jason Segel, who also stars in it alongside Sally Field, Eve Lindley and Richard E. Grant. AMC’s official description of Dispatches From Elsewhere reads: 

“The ten-hour series is centered around four ordinary people who feel there’s something missing in their lives, but they can’t quite put their finger on what it is. This diverse foursome is brought together by chance – or perhaps it’s by design – when they stumble onto a puzzle hiding just behind the veil of everyday life. As they begin to accept the mysterious ‘Dispatches from Elsewhere’ challenges, they come to find that the mystery winds deeper than they imagined, and their eyes are opened to a world of possibility and magic.”

In the trailer, you can get a glimpse of Andre Benjamin in his role as Fredwyne, one of the four “ordinary people” that gets caught up in the puzzle. The legendary rapper has showed off his acting skills in the 2013 Jimi Hendrix biopic, Jimi: All Is By My Side, and 2006’s Idlewild. 

Comedy Central appears to be cashing in on Awkwafina’s success as of late. Following the rapper-comedian’s Golden Globe win and overall critical acclaim for her role as Billi in the film, The Farewell, the network has already renewed her comedy series, Awkwafina Is Nora From Queens, for a second season, before the first has even premiered. According to Complex, the series is “a coming of age story that details [Awkwafina’s] experiences as a young adult in Flushing, Queens.” Awkwafina has revealed that the material she deals with in the show is heavily based on her own experiences.  “I made a point to draw on very true realities of my life, of my growing up, of who I am,” she noted on a panel. “In the character of Nora, I don’t think she’s overdrawn in any way. She’s as real as I can play her.”

Starring in the series alongside Nora “Awkwafina” Lum are D Wong, Bowen Yang, and Lori Tan Chinn. It is executive produced by Lucia Aniello, Karey Dornetto, Teresa Hsiao, and Awkwafina herself. Aniello, Lyonne, Jamie Babbit, Steven Tsuchida, Anu Valia, and the Daniels have signed on as directors. As a promotional tactic for the show, Awkwafina has taken over the 7 line subway in Manhattan and Queens with some hilarious automated messages. The recordings include demands like “Stop manspreading!” and showcase her NYC brand of humour.

Awkwafina Is Nora From Queens will premiere on Comedy Central on January 22nd.

Spoilers included.

The great moments and storylines of The Sopranos were only possible through the creation of characters with such credible inner lives. How could a slight nod of the head or a certain look mean so much without the painstaking effort put into making each character feel like one of your closest friends? Every character is revealed as a masterpiece when dissected, because you marvel at the imagination it took to create a fictional person capable of such humanity and violence. Or of such intelligence and, at the same time, obtuseness. Or of such heinous morality but with such a well-timed wit. The contradictions in each persona were what made them ring true and seem real. On this list, there’s no place for “but do you like so-and-so?” Of course not. They’re all terrible people— but that’s what makes them gripping characters.

10. Silvio Dante (played by Steve Van Zandt)

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Steven Van Zandt is so good as Silvio Dante that you forget that he was part of Bruce Springteen’s E Street Band. In his real life he wears bandanas, dresses in rainbow colors, and plays guitar and mandolin. But in The Sopranos, Silvio is Tony’s consigliere and owner of the Bada Bing! club. Silvio is the no-nonsense, dependable guy— the Tom Hagan in the crew.

He’s the level-headed, thoughtful foil to Paulie’s hot-headed, impulsive character. Like Paulie, though, Silvio’s blind faith in Tony wavers at times. Tony’s obvious grooming of Christopher threatens to become a serious problem, but Silvio manages to navigate around Tony’s favoritism. When the intervention for Christopher kicks off, Silvio reads his contribution off of a slip of paper: “When I came in to open up one morning, there you were with your head half in the toilet. Your hair was in the toilet water. Disgusting.” Even when Tony supports Christopher’s claim that he had been sick with the flu, Silvio’s expression is fixed. Silvio has already made up his mind about why Chrissy was throwing up and he doesn’t care to hear any other opinions. In this situation, his fixedness renders him incorrect but it usually serves him well under Tony’s tumultuous rule. I think Silvio was a more beloved character until he was charged with murdering Adriana. His ability to keep his emotions out of his work may have previously been viewed through a lens of realpolitik, but it seemed psychopathic once applied to a scenario as devastating as Adriana’s death. When Silvio is shot and his fate is left undeclared at the end of the series, his wrongdoing makes it difficult to decide how to feel. The beauty of the series is its unflinching gaze and daringness to go beyond a safe ‘anti-hero’ and tread into proper villain territory.

9. Ralph Cifaretto (played by Joe Pantoliano)

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What a great villain. Sniveling. Stupid enough that you don’t respect him, but not so stupid that you aren’t scared of him. Ralphie is the type of dangerous idiot that collapses societies (Joe Pantoliano also played Cipher in The Matrix). Ralphie will always be remembered for being viciously murdered by Tony (and chopped up by Christopher) in one of the most barbaric and beautifully choreographed scenes in the series. It’s hard to think of another fight scene that challenges the hand-to-hand kitchen combat, weaponized frying pan. Ralphie is a necessary character because he provides an example of someone unrepentantly evil in a cast of characters that all toe the line.

8. Adriana La Cerva (played by Drea de Matteo)

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Even though I wanted Adriana to be successful in “saving” Christopher, I never had any faith that she could do it. She was too sweet, dumb, and loyal. From her IBS to her failed music talent scouting career to Cosette’s farcical death—Adriana is a comedic figure in a large-scale tragedy. She was the perfect character to get entangled with the FBI because she frustrated them to no end without meaning to. She wants to cooperate, but only if she doesn’t get anyone in trouble. Adriana has no idea how high the stakes are and actually believes there’s a way to get out of the mafia unscathed. The fact that she actually befriends the FBI agent and brings “Danielle” into Tony’s home is emblematic of Adriana’s naiveté. Anyone watching from the outside can anticipate what’s going to happen to Adriana from the first time she agrees to cooperate.

Adriana imagines herself packing her things and driving away, but instead she sits and waits for Silvio to pick her up.

7. Junior Soprano (played by Dominic Chianese)

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Bobby Baccalieri and Junior’s repartee is one of the best features of the series. Junior is an insufferable old man who starts off as a genuine threat, becomes a nuisance, and then ends as a shell of a person. Dominic Chianese is masterful in portraying the range of someone who is affecting dementia to someone who is suffering from dementia. He throws in just enough lucid looks and coy smiles to keep you guessing as to his true mental capacity. Message boards pick apart the point at which Junior actually lost it because the performance is so layered and masterful.  

6. Meadow Soprano (played by Jamie-Lynn Sigler)

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Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in. To me, Meadow is the single most tragic figure in The Sopranos. By the final season, she’s 180-ed on her civil liberties phase and transitioned fully into a state of Carmela delusion. She traded her do-gooder boyfriend Finn in for Patrick Parisi, whose law career is still mob connected. Meadow’s rant about how Italian Americans are unfairly portrayed in the media as mafiosos makes it hard to remember that as a teenager, she asked her dad, “Are you in the mafia?” Meadow is a deft case study in unfulfilled promise and how difficult it is to escape your roots. As whiny and annoying as Meadow could be, I always loved the moments when she challenged Tony and made him seem like a typical suburban dad trying to mediate between his wife and daughter.

5. Paulie Gaultieri (played by Tony Sirico)

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Maybe it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the actor who played Paulie was a real wiseguy. Tony Sirico was arrested 28 times and served 20 months—but he’s also acted with Dennis Hopper and Harvey Keitel. You can never say Sirico didn’t bring authenticity to the role (even though he grew up in Brooklyn rather than Jersey). Paulie’s rescue of the oil painting of Tony and Pie-O-My is the perfect microcosm of their relationship. Paulie’s simultaneous hero worship and resentment of Tony was believable in a world that required blind loyalty and extreme deference to the chain of command. Nothing gives me life like a Paulie malapropism, but the lasting image of Paulie is indisputably eating half-frozen ketchup packets with Christopher (“Not bad. Mix it with the relish.”) in “Pine Barrens.” The scene captures Sirico’s unique gift to infuse humor and absurdity into a situation where both qualities seem inappropriate, but play so well.   

4. Li Soprano (played by Nancy Marchand)

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When you find out Li Soprano is based on David Chase’s own mother, it all makes sense. She is a character with such depth and richness because she’s stepped out of real life and onto the screen. Li’s ability to both annoy and enrage Tony stems from her all-encompassing knowledge of his insecurities. She needles him, baits him, and stabs him in the back. She knows that with their blood bond he will never truly turn on her— even if he is capable of holding the thought of suffocation in his mind. The moment that most encapsulates their relationship is when Li has just had a stroke, she’s hooked up to oxygen and is being wheeled through the hospital on a stretcher. Tony confronts his mother, screaming that he knows she betrayed him—that she tried to have him murdered. An orderly tells Tony that his mom doesn’t know what’s going on or what he’s saying. As Tony is being restrained he screams after her, “She smiled! Look at the look on her face […] She’s got a fucking smile on her face!” Even when she is physically incapacitated she thrives on Tony’s suffering. She craves his attention and revels in the fact that she can cause a reaction and break his heart even when he’s been crowned alpha of the crew.    

3. Carmela Soprano (played by Edie Falco)

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I would rank Carmela at the top of the Most Conflicted Characters list. Her life is funded by blood money, but she fancies herself a sophisticated woman. The majority of her life, Carmela refuses to acknowledge the reality of her mob ties, but every once in a while the ugly truth stares her in the face. In “Second Opinion,” Carmela has an appointment with Dr. Krakower and he refuses payment because he knows what Tony’s line of work is. Shamed and humiliated by the doctor, Carmela demands something that will make her feel legitimate in the eyes of the world: a $50k donation to Columbia. Carmela has the intelligence to know that her lifestyle comes at an iniquitous cost, but she doesn’t have the gumption to do anything about it beyond a feeble first step. Her pangs of conscience ring false by the third or fourth time we see her ‘grappling’ with the morality of being a mob wife—and that’s what makes Carmela so compelling. Her life is a series of false starts. One of the funniest incidents of Carmela’s hypocrisy is her jealousy of Father Intintola and Rosalie’s friendship. Her relationship with a man of the Church is entirely self-serving and she bastardizes the meaning of faith when she almost sleeps with the priest. Edie Falco’s portrait of a wife and mother who uses the excuse of duty to her family to sustain a life that benefits her equally is incredibly acted.

2. Christopher Moltisanti (played by Michael Imperioli)

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“Did you ever feel like nothing good was ever gonna happen to you?” That line destroys me. Christopher’s artist aspirations, his desire for a father figure, the “Acting for Playwrights” class— I find even his flaws endearing because he’s such a disarming character. Chrissy is hilarious then brutal then idiotic then pathetic all in the same episode. He suffers so many humiliations and the sense that he is fated to be miserable feels spot on. From the mock execution to being strip searched to the feeble way he dies, Christopher’s lack of agency is oppressive. Even though Meadow, Adriana and Carmela are all caught up in a lifestyle they feel conflicted about, Christopher has no breathing room to even feel conflicted. His tragedy is not that he made the wrong choice but that he never had any choice to begin with. Christopher’s death is anticlimactic but devastatingly appropriate: a combination of bad luck and (someone else’s) opportunity.

1. Tony Soprano (played by James Gandolfini)

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It’s easy to forget how stigmatized therapy once was given that it’s ubiquitous now. The concept of a mob boss who sees a shrink was hysterical and groundbreaking at the same time. While The Godfather obliquely addressed Michael’s inner life (think the final shot of the second film), The Sopranos forced Tony to talk frankly about his feelings. The result was that Tony’s humanity often humiliated him and thereby made him relatable. Tony probed his emotional life and his past trauma to give us wildly obtuse insights like: “What happened to Gary Cooper? The strong, silent type. That was an American. He wasn’t in touch with his feelings. He just did what he had to do. See, what they didn’t know was once they got Gary Cooper in touch with his feelings that they wouldn’t be able to shut him up! And then it’s dysfunction this, and dysfunction that, and dysfunction vaffancul!” Tony is a great anti-hero because he transcends the one-dimensionality of Gary Cooper types. Even as he’s orchestrating brutality and murdering his nephew, you can still see the weaknesses that his family and therapy have laid bare.

The reddit board for The Sopranos is still going strong. If you didn’t know any better, you might assume that the show is still on air for all of the activity and debate. Certain debates never die— like the one about the final scene. Other debates fixate on the likability of characters or the ‘deservingness’ of certain deaths. These fictional characters are dissected as if they are historical figures and the effort that Sopranos scholars put into proving their correctness is often doctoral worthy.

A great number of the posts are simply admiration and appreciation. Watching the show to examine its craft is a very different exercise than watching it for enjoyment, but it’s an exercise that is duly rewarded. It was just a few weeks ago that someone pointed out how talented Michael Imperioli is for being able to do such a convincing job ‘acting badly’ as Christopher. I returned to the “Acting for Playwrights” scene and, sure enough, I was impressed anew at the incredible quality of the show. If you watch closely, you’ll always be rewarded.

Michael Imperioli and Drea De Matteo pose in ‘The Sopranos’ press image – Hulton Archive/Getty Images

It’s remarkable that twelve years after the finale aired audiences are still discussing the ins and outs of the series. This type of staying power in a world where shows come and go, hardly making a ripple, speaks to scale of the series’ achievement. The Sopranos wasn’t just a landmark in quality—it changed television’s stature in the media landscape. The way television pervades culture today is in large part due to what The Sopranos proved a TV series was capable of doing.

One of the most graspable changes in television culture is the vast amount of journalism produced on the subject. The Sopranos’ nationwide fandom proved that there existed the kind of interest and enthusiasm in a television series that could support what would eventually evolve into an entire industry of television journalists. The amount of TV coverage we’ve come to expect is a direct consequence of the Beatlemania-evel of obsession with The Sopranos: there is recap, opinion pieces, analysis, and even theory. The level of investment that audiences poured into a work of fiction was unprecedented and their consumption of journalistic coverage was greedy.

James Gandolfini shooting ‘The Sopranos’ on location, 2007 – Bobby Bank/WireImage/Getty Images

The same way that sports journalists specialize by following certain teams in-depth, culture journalists now watch television shows as part of their jobs. I was faced with an embarrassment of riches when I wanted to understand why Westworld was such a big deal (without watching it). There existed episode recap guides from virtually every entertainment hub. I had the luxury of picking the guide by the writer whose voice I liked most and then I got to enjoy the show in prose form until it bored me and I had the intrusive thought, “Not as good as The Sopranos.”

The Sopranos is an unfair bar, though. It struck a balance between commercial and high-brow that made it irresistible. On the commercial end there’s a steady diet of mob fare: murder, blackmail, violence, toxic masculinity. On the high-brow end, there’s the degradation of Tony’s integrity from questionable to unforgivable and complex moral questions every single character must grapple with. But under David Chase, even the commercial is not really commercial. After reading a number of Chase’s interviews, I don’t think it was out of a generosity of spirit or faith in audiences that guided him to create something heartier than your average mob story. He simply didn’t care if audiences didn’t get it or if execs thought it was too intellectualized.

HBO execs tried to talk David Chase out of having Tony murder someone in the season 1 episode “College.” Chase held his ground despite the huge fear that the episode would make Tony too ‘unlikeable’ and doom the series. “College” went on to become one of the most lauded episodes in the entire show. By not pandering to the audience, by not hewing blindly to tried and true formulas, the writers demonstrated that good storytelling trumps all else.   

It’s not just that The Sopranos has “something for everyone,” but that it converts you on the topics you may have believed you didn’t care about. Maybe you went into the series thinking that violence repelled you or that domestic squabbles were uninteresting. The series made you just as invested in Tony and Carmela’s marriage as in who’s talking to the FBI. You were invested in the status of Meadow’s soul. In Chrissy’s fate. It’s difficult to be indifferent to any of the characters because all of their problems are presented as equally important and rarely does anyone’s conflict feel like “B” story.

Jamie-Lynn Sigler and Edie Falco attend the ‘The Sopranos’ 20th Anniversary Panel Discussion – Mike Coppola/WireImage/Getty Images

The Sopranos has ushered in an era where television is such a force that is constitutes a pastime. Not only is it extremely normal to ask what shows someone watches, but is it a common practice to list shows amongst Interests in dating profiles. Think about how strange that is for a moment. Television shows have become part of our identities to such a degree that we include them in mini-biographies of ourselves. Alongside “fitness”, “trying new restaurants”, and “music”, you could easily find The Sopranos.

It’s a testament to the greatness of the show that people claim it as their favorite in an effort to showcase their tastes. Taste is something to be shown off and by declaring partiality to The Sopranos, it says something about one’s artistic inclinations. It speaks specifically to an affinity for a certain brand of dark humor and an appreciation of sophisticated storytelling. Shows with equal thoughtfulness are often considered alienating or “slow.” People criticize The Wire for being too indifferent to the natural attention span and effort that audiences are willing to put in to a new show.   

The Sopranos is definitely rewarding more quickly, but I believe the heart of its success can be summed up by something that a professor once explained to me. He said the difference between a commercial book and a literary book is that the commercial one gives the reader what she wants, whereas the literary one provides something that the reader did not realize she wanted. The Sopranos avoided falling into mob clichés and predictable plotlines by ignoring what focus groups might conclude and what audiences would claim to want. By disregarding whether or not a plot would ‘perform well’ in a viewership sense, writers could prioritize craft. What they created was something that surprised and captured an enormous audience and television writers have been striving to recreate the magic of The Sopranos ever since.  

Post-Goodfellas and The Godfather, the golden era of mafia stories seemed to be over. But The Sopranos reinvented the genre by modernizing and dimensionalizing it. The Sopranos fueled imaginations and demonstrated what television has the potential to be. It was challenging, provocative, moving, and unflaggingly entertaining.

Steven Van Zandt, James Gandolfini and Tony Sirico in ‘The Sopranos’ (Year 3 Still) – Hulton Archive/Getty Images