Sepinwall's book excerpt on The Sopranos: The Russian, and The End

I've seen FNL, Buffy, The Wire, Breaking Bad, and Mad Men. The Sopranos, Deadwood, and Battlestar Gallactica are on my list for sometime in the next year.

 

Breaking Bad, Lost, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Battlestar Galactica, Mad men.

Lost and Galactica only ones I stuck with from start to finish, though would have loved to stick with the two AMC ones but had bad cable for a couple of years. Buffy lost me when Riley showed up.

 

God, how I hated Riley. I still stuck with it through that, though.

 

I would've bought this if it had Friends in it. (ducking ...)

 

He was enough for both me and the wife to drop the show. I caught the show a couple years later after they had decided that showing Sarah Michelle Gellar having sex on TV was the way to ratings gold. Also caught the musical episode, which was great.

Friends defied convention, as it was a sitcom that was completely unfunny and yet somehow popular.

 

I don't even think that's fair. The plots are good to great except for Season 2. But the continuity is a little absurd.

 

I reflexively have to stand up for "Friends," as I always do when such posts are made.

Uneven? Absolutely.

Unfunny? No way. In some ways, it was "Seinfeld" for 20-somethings, and had a lot of smart, recognizable plots and arcs. Handled young people's relationships - romatic, platonic, and work - tremendously.

Also, it largely improved with age, as they nailed down the characters better, and trimmed a lot of the cutesy stuff that infuriated hipster television viewers early on.

 

Were 20-somethings not allowed to watch Seinfeld?

 

I read this one in a few days though I admit that I only read the chapters on the shows I have seen (The Sopranos, Oz, The Wire, Breaking Bad, FNL). I skipped the rest. Some of them (Mad Men, Deadwood) I plan to watch eventually. Others I have no interest in. But Sepinwall is and was so into the HBO shows that it's worth the read just for the insights into those.

 

Well, sure.

But I'm referring to the age of the cast.

I laughed my ass off at "Seinfeld."

I related, at that time, to "Friends."

Identity politics, etc., etc.

 

I really never understood the love of Friends. I thought it was an average show with a pretty cast, but predictable jokes.