In Alex Gibney’s new documentary about the making of “The Sopranos,” series regular Michael Imperioli explains how the show is unlike any that came before it. He provides an interesting explanation.
“TV used to make you feel good,” Imperioli explains.
He added that “The Sopranos” creator David Chase’s approach to TV storytelling was “completely opposite.”
You may be thinking to yourself, Hey, I don’t like the feel-good stuff! I love gritty police dramas like Law & Order: SVU. Nothing wholesome!
Yet, according to Imperioli, TV police shows exist like a Trojan horse for good vibes.
dark definition
Yes, you might think that the “feel good” label only applies to Ted Lasso, When Calls the Heart, etc.
But Imperioli believes that the traditionally structured radio show about first responders provides viewers with a sense of warmth and familiarity through predictable, formulaic storylines.
“Cop shows, why are cop shows so exciting?” he asked in the Gibney doc.
“Because at the end of the day, bad guys go to jail. There’s some kind of order in the universe. There’s some kind of justice in it.
Imperioli believes one of the reasons audiences have responded so well to “The Sopranos” is because of the show’s erratic, chaotic nature.
But this unpredictability doesn’t come from Shimaran-esque twists and turns (which provide a comfortable sense of familiarity of its own).
Rather, it’s the result of carefully crafting a storyline that’s just as messy as real life.
A gangster survived a confrontation with a powerful opponent only to be killed shortly afterwards during an argument about a horse.
A furious chase through a snowy forest ends up anticlimactic as his prey disappears – and better yet, we never find out what happened to him.
This was a new kind of television—one that had more in common with the French New Wave cinema of Goddard and Truffaut than with the comforting traditions of pre-golden-age television.
Happy wanderers and ruthless gangsters
Critics and casual TV fans have debated for years whether The Sopranos is the greatest show of the 21st century, but few dispute that it is the most influential.
The show’s success established HBO as a platform for bold, original content and helped create a television landscape in which innovation is as highly valued as big-name stars.
If Tony Soprano never walked into a therapist’s office, Deadwood, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, The Wife, The Wire, Lost, Orange Is the New Black ” and “The Americans” probably won’t happen.
A new day seems to have arrived, one in which television audiences want to be challenged by shows as bold and confrontational as the best movies of the year.
end of an era
But the so-called second golden age disappeared just as it began, as David Chase observed earlier this year.
Don’t get me wrong, The Sopranos isn’t the first show to explore the darker side of humanity, and the current TV landscape isn’t all flowers and sunshine.
But it seems like every succession has been replaced by a dozen Fire Nation, which is another series (in fact, it’s a series now) On the surface Upbeat, but conveying tropes and formulas in a way that might provide subconscious comfort to viewers looking for familiar flavors.
Chase says he now thinks of the second golden age as a fluke — a “brief period of 25 years” in which television briefly transcended its perceived limitations and temporarily achieved the level of high art.
“To be clear, I’m not just talking about The Sopranos, I’m talking about a lot of other talented people for whom I feel increasingly sad,” he said in a recent interview with The Hollywood Reporter.
The truth is, darkness isn’t commercially viable—at least not in the somewhat stuffy milieu of contemporary television.
If the dominance of Disney and Marvel movies at the box office is any indication, Americans are generally more averse to darkness now than ever before.
But television has been particularly hard hit by toxic positivity.
When audiences walk into an arthouse movie theater, they may be willing to endure two hours of doom and gloom because they know what kind of gloom and doom awaits.
But they don’t want to take an hour out of a busy Tuesday night to deal with an existential crisis, especially when the kids haven’t gone to bed yet.
Therefore, “laundry-folding TV” content that can be enjoyed while completing household chores or browsing TikTok will dominate in 2024.
We can’t say we blame anyone for leaning toward such content.
After all, the evening news continues to provide enough horror to send anyone into the warm embrace of Stalker reruns.
We just hope we can all take a moment, maybe on a Sunday night, to help the panic-prone gangsters, chronically ill drug dealers, alcoholic ad men, and other living beings who remind us of the darkness within each of us. .
TV fans, what do you think? Is there a lack of darkness in the modern television landscape?
Hit the comments section below to share your thoughts!
