This feature was first posted onDen of Geek UKin July 2013.

If youre lucky, youll remember the little moments… like this… that were good.

Tony Soprano

At its heart,The Sopranoswas a show was about family, both gangster and blood.

IfSeinfeldwas the show about nothing, thenThe Sopranoswas the show about everything.

On the surface, life is acting like rosy.

In my opinion, onlyBreaking BadandThe Wireeven come close.

The Enigma of Tony Soprano

Can you guess who this is?

He fiddles with the coffee maker, favouring threats over charm in his dialogue with the increasingly disobedient gadget.

Anger, hot and molten, rises in his veins as he strides to the fridge.

He can feel a crushing in his chest, a fizzing in his brain.

Why wont this machine work?

He reaches for the milk carton.

Grabs it, shakes it; hears a pitiful, hollow slosh.

Motherfucking cock-sucking fucking milk!

he roars, each expletive punctuated by a violent slam of the fridge door.

Why the fuck does this shit always happen to me?

Thats an easy one!

Its got to be Tony Soprano, right?

Its me: after eight years of watching Tony Soprano.

The changes were subtle at first: a shit here, a fuck there, the odd stray cocksucker.

But those were only gateway swearwords.

There were other changes, too.

If I received upsetting news I wouldnt cry, sulk, or pout.

Whacking quickly cemented itself in my mind as the preferred method of conflict resolution.

Ill tell you what youre gonna do, mate: whack the motherfucker!

Before too long it became clear: gradual exposure to Tony Soprano had turned me into an armchair gangster.

Tony Sopranos philosophy for wrangling with the world is deliciously appealing because of its emphasis on obeying impulses.

He bribes, steals, screws, cheats, punches and kills his way through life.

In the fast, gas-guzzling SUV of life, who wouldnt want an id like Tonys behind the wheel?

Despite the views of a miniscule minority,The Sopranosisnt some blood-soaked love letter to crime and murder.

Nobody really gets away with it.

Well, sometimes they do.

He wasnt good, bad or evil.

He was just Tony.

And for that you loved him, and rooted for him, despite the moral flip-flopping that stance demanded.

Or is it a nursing home… No wonder he ended up in therapy.

In Treatment

This psychiatry shit.

Apparently, what youre feeling isnt what youre feeling and what youre not feeling, thats your real agenda.

We ask ourselves as Melfi does if weve been charmed by a sociopath all along.

Why The Sopranos kicks ass

Those who want respect, give respect.

Could Tony maybe just give him a stern telling-off?

Maybe he could cuddle a puppy in the following scene?

Could Tony maybe say mother-fudger instead?

Thats not to say that the show was free from the horrors of advertising entirely.

There was a great deal of product placement.

Hey, this is your cousin Roccoco Cokey Cola from Naples: hes a friend of ours.

Also,Members Only, season sixs opener, contains some of the most blatant product placement ever seen.

The production values are cinematic, as is the scope of the narrative.

The dialogue is rich and authentic, in a way that is seldom seen on web connection television.

The female characters, Carmela in particular, are exquisitely written and acted.

Dramatically speaking, everything in the show seems inevitable without ever being predictable.

The Russian, anyone?

Youll often hear the claim thatThe Sopranoschanged the TV landscape.

Great shows likeThe Wire,Boardwalk EmpireandMad Menmight never have seen the light of day.