Brilliant or uninspired? No matter what you think about it, the series Finale to The Sopranos on Sunday night, which I watched because the Tonys were so interminably boring, was completely unsatisfying to someone like me.
I need closure. I WANT closure. I like plays that have beginnings, middles and ends. This is referred to as "observing the Aristotelian Unities of Time and Place" which is just a fancy-schmancy way of saying that "it makes sense."
Sunday night's closing to The Sopranos did not make any sense. Oh, I "got it" that it was up to me to fill in the blanks, any way I saw fit. I "know" about art, and about how it's "all in the eye of the beholder".
But I have a hot flash for Mr. Chase. TV ain't art. It never was art and it never will be art. That "tv as art" boat sailed at the close of the 1950's when shows like Omnibus and The Bell Telephone Hour started going off the air, to be replaced by hour-long western anthologies and half-hour mindless sitcoms. And why was that? Because the sales departments of networks could charge more for a minute of a successful western or sitcom than it could for an entire hour of high-falutin' "art." That's why.
I have no axe to grind against Mr. Chase. I'm sure it was his best effort. But do you know what? The Series finale to Six Feet Under was 10,000 times more gratifying than whatever it was that I sat through last Sunday night.
I didn't much care for The Sopranos, either as people or as a television series, when it was on. I like it, and them, even less now.
And that includes the horse Mr. Chase rode in on.
3 comments:
Dunno how I will feel about the ending, but it will be awhile before I get around to it on DVD. Tonight I watched a couple of episodes from season 4 which is where I currently am in the story.
I did see a couple of reviews one of which talked a lot about Tony playing Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" on the jukebox in the final scene. The reviewer made a point of quoting the last line before the final chorus:
"Some will win, some will lose
Some were born to sing the blues
And the movie it never ends, it goes on and on and on and on..."
Which perhaps explains why this morning I found myself failing to shelve a Chilton auto repair manual as I teared up to a mental image of Joel seated in a heavenly theatre watching the ongoing movie of my life...I'm strangely comforted by the notion that when you finish your part you get to sit in the audience and watch the drama of life go on and on without you.
(None of which has much of anything to do with the Sopranos, but...)
That's a good image to have of an afterlife.
If there is some sort of anthropomorphic afterworld, I hope I get to meet a lot of serene strangers there.
I don't want to run into any of my relatives. Or science fiction writers.
>>of sci fi writers
ROFLMAO
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