Nothing quite compares to a lazy summer. Since this past summer was probably the last one I’ll really have to myself, I tried to appreciate every last second of it. This was the last time I could spend a few months plowing through a personal list of TV shows, books, and movies—no study-filled semester or 40-hour work weeks could get in the way.
I found myself reading classics like John Steinbeck’s East of Eden and Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front in my free time at work, getting through the entirety of Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese’s filmographies, and watching hour-long conversations with some of my favorite public figures like Jon Stewart, Conan O’Brien, and the Monty Python troupe.
I even had the chance to make through one of the most heralded TV shows of all time—The Sopranos. In a lot of ways, it didn’t disappoint. For the first couple of seasons, I couldn’t leave my TV for any length of time. I’d pause an episode, run off to grab sufficient nutrients to keep my body functioning, and in a couple seconds I’d be right back in my reclining chair for the next five hours. Everything from the soundtrack to the nostalgic late 90’s and early 2000’s film quality, wardrobe, and cars had my attention from the very first scene where Tony Soprano skeptically enters therapy for the first time. James Gandolfini gives such an authentic performance as Tony Soprano. It was shocking to hear him speak without that nasally ring when I saw him in In the Loop about a week after I started The Sopranos. I was in love, but then it all went terribly wrong.
Around the middle of the third season, the show lost its charm. Paulie’s constant head bobbing, Christopher’s consistently annoyed tone, Silv’s obnoxious Mafioso appearance and gravitas, they all grew more apparent and less genuine. Problems in Tony’s criminal empire didn’t seem as natural, they felt shoehorned in to keep the story rolling around. There was always one person at a time that would go over to the FBI, and the second they were out of the picture, the next FBI informant would come along. Characters were being killed left and right without consequences. Maybe The Sopranos lost its magic over the years, but I don’t think it was just the show’s fault that these perpetuated character dynamics and increasingly convoluted plotlines lost their grip on me. In all likelihood, it was probably my fault.
Shows like The Sopranos weren’t designed to be binged. Especially in the late 90’s and early 2000’s, it’d cost a lot of money to buy seasons of TV shows on tape or DVD and go through the show in a limited number of sittings. It also wasn’t a cultural norm back then to spend days blowing through a program. Watching The Sopranos meant that you’d see Tony and his pals for an hour each week for 13 weeks and then you’d have about nine months without them. That’s a nice chunk of time to let some of the show’s overdone stereotypes die down in a viewer’s perception. And after all that time, you’d actually be excited to see those characters again. I didn’t feel any big excitement transitioning from season to season because I didn’t have to wait in anticipation for it, I just pressed play.
This doesn’t just apply to The Sopranos. As much as I love it, I couldn’t imagine bingeing through Game of Thrones in a week or two. I’ve watched the show each year from the very beginning and I still feel there’s a large enough concentration of sex and violence in watching an episode a week that any more would be sickening. I might find it agonizing at times, but I don’t think the show would be nearly as enjoyable if I didn’t have to sit on a cliffhanger for a week and think through a myriad of ideas of what could happen next. There’s a fundamental difference in designing a show like Game of Thrones that airs each week and builds up and releases tension on that basis and a show like House of Cards where the writers probably go about their business knowing that viewers will speed through the season in a 13 hour window. I enjoy the more suspenseful approach.
As fun as it was to take in as many movies and books as I did this summer, I proved that, at least for me, binge watching television can ruin a lot of aspects of what TV series were designed to do. Maybe in a few months I’ll come back to The Sopranos and find myself immersed in the same Jersey I grew to love, but for now, as far as I’m concerned, it’s sleeping with the fishes.
Featured Image Courtesy of Home Box Office
