'Sopranos' Creator: Tee Vee Sux

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Mark Jeffries

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Jan 15, 2024, 10:50:36 AMJan 15
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In an interview with the Times of London (which is behind a pay wall), David Chase says that the 25th anniversary of his groundbreaking "The Sopranos" should be considered "a funeral," not a celebration, and that television is starting to dumb down again:

Kevin M.

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Jan 15, 2024, 11:18:56 AMJan 15
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I think if Chase checks, there was dumbed down TV 25 years ago, too. And although I liked (but did not love) The Sopranos, I wouldn’t classify it as smart TV. It was well made TV, but it wasn’t smart TV. 

Kevin M. (RPCV)


On Mon, Jan 15, 2024 at 7:50 AM Mark Jeffries <spotl...@gmail.com> wrote:
In an interview with the Times of London (which is behind a pay wall), David Chase says that the 25th anniversary of his groundbreaking "The Sopranos" should be considered "a funeral," not a celebration, and that television is starting to dumb down again:


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Adam Bowie

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Jan 15, 2024, 11:56:30 AMJan 15
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Whatever you think of The Sopranos, I think Chase is right. 

Yes, there's still Succession, Fargo, The Bear, White Lotus and so on being made. But I'm not going to kid myself that this is what Netflix et al will be producing for the most part in the future. The most popular drama on the recent Netflix data dump was The Night Agent, which frankly, is rubbish. I only managed one episode. A bit more swearing than a network show, and perhaps more sex (I don't know), but otherwise, it might have aired on CBS.

And it just feels to me that we're getting more of these "gourmet burgers" as Netflix's Bela Bajaria put it herself. In other words, if NCIS is McDonalds, then The Night Agent is McDonalds with fancier presentation and slightly better ingredients. But only very slightly. But just as I might like a burger and fries from time to time, I also like to eat better food, and that's what it feels like is going away. Like a town where the only restaurants are chain fast food places.

Amazon's hottest show right now is Reacher. And it's absolutely... fine. It's definitely not exceptional in any way. It has more cash spent on it than a network show - the action sequences are better. But it's still very obviously Canada doubling for the US for tax reasons, and has an A-to-B-to-C plot that is not going to challenge any viewer who is also scrolling TikTok at the same time. I've no doubt it works well globally because there's not even an enormous amount of dialogue to translate/dub. Nobody ever got poor on selling big guys firing big guns.

It's just a televisual reversion to the mean.


Adam

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Tom Wolper

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Jan 15, 2024, 12:08:21 PMJan 15
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In a world of 500+ TV series there are going to be only 2 or 3 that are going to be considered classic or brilliant. And if these 2 or 3 brilliant series aren’t recognized by the algorithms to push into people’s feeds they won’t be found by a mass audience.

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