MetaChat REGISTER   ||   LOGIN   ||   IMAGES ARE OFF   ||   RECENT COMMENTS




artphoto by splunge
artphoto by TheophileEscargot
artphoto by Kronos_to_Earth
artphoto by ethylene

Home

About

Search

Archives

Mecha Wiki

Metachat Eye

Emcee

IRC Channels

IRC FAQ


 RSS


Comment Feed:

RSS

09 June 2007

This comment by mudpuppie makes me wonder: am I the only person here who's never seen an episode of The Sopranos?
It's not like I went out of my way to avoid it, but we don't have any pay cable channels, and when we watch TV shows on DVD it's always 60's and 70's stuff, so it just sort of never happened.
posted by BoringPostcards 09 June | 11:58
I've never seen it. Missed it the first two seasons and by then it just seemed too late to start watching it.
posted by arse_hat 09 June | 12:03
I watched the first two or three seasons, and then just lost interest. It got a little relentlessly dark and violent for me, I think.
posted by Claudia_SF 09 June | 12:08
Missed it the first two seasons and by then it just seemed too late to start watching it.

This is why I missed out on Lost, a show that I'd actually like to see, but not enough to go through all those episodes.
posted by BoringPostcards 09 June | 12:12
I hadn't heard that The Sopranos existed. Thanks for the spoiler, jerkass!
posted by cortex 09 June | 12:15
Nope, I've never seen an episode. Never seemed really interesting.
posted by puke & cry 09 June | 12:18
I've never had HBO, and thus have never seen The Sopranos, Lost, Oz or any show not later syndicated on, say, TBS. And I've never seen an un-edited episode of Sex and the City,
posted by brina 09 June | 12:25
Well, it's good to know I'm NOT the only one, then.
posted by BoringPostcards 09 June | 12:39
I don't own a TV.
posted by bkudria 09 June | 12:41
Shit, I've never even seen a TV. I don't even know what a TV is.
posted by puke & cry 09 June | 12:48
another non watcher here as well. I have a TV but mostly use it for movies and some public television so I've truly missed out of massive amounts of recent cultural phenomena.

Which is funny, because the first 12 years of my life we didn't have a TV, then we moved to the States and had cable and the whole shebang. HBO etc during the mid eighties and fill up on it (what the hell else is a teenager in Nashville going to do), and now we have a tv but it remains pretty unused
posted by edgeways 09 June | 12:50
I've never seen it, although once I was in the room while my husband was watching it and the music over the closing credits prompted me to run to the computer to find out what it was, at the same time that someone was posting to AskMe to find out what the music was.

Other than that I've never seen it. I do not want to be exposed to Sopranos ;)
posted by iconomy 09 June | 12:51
Yeah, when I first got my own apartment in college, I was an HBO addict! That was the early-to-mid eighties.
posted by BoringPostcards 09 June | 12:53
I've got a tv (well, I used to--now I've got a computer monitor with two computers, a DVD player, 2 VCRs and five videogame consoles plugged into it), but I've never seen an episode of The Sopranos.

Maybe, I've been thinking, now's a good time to start watching it. From the beginning, I mean. From a distance, it seems like the kind of thing I might like.
posted by box 09 June | 13:05
I've never seen it, but I completely hate the thug- and brutality-glorifying genre of mobster fiction.
posted by interrobang 09 June | 13:21
No HBO, no Sopranos. Slight amount of interest, but not enough to add to Netflix. I's lazy.
posted by bmarkey 09 June | 13:21
The only currently-really-popular show I've watched (that isn't a cartoon) is CSI, but I got really sick of it. Especially after Grisom mis-quoted The Raven and it began to sink in that everything they say is bullshit.
posted by Citizen Premier 09 June | 13:25
I DO own a tv, a big honkin' tv, with a built-in VCR and DVD player. But no, I haven't seen The Sopranos. But then I only just recently got around to the Godfather movies, so gimme 20 or 30 years, I'll probably get to it.
posted by JanetLand 09 June | 13:36
I've never seen it. I just got TV for the first time in 7 years but not HBO or anything, just basic cable (I had the TV before but we don't get any channels without cable and I didn't have cable, so we only used it for DVDs.) However, my brother owns the first couple of seasons on DVD and I've been thinking about borrowing it.
posted by mygothlaundry 09 June | 13:46
No TV here either, but after many years I finally got it from Netflix. I'm still a season or two behind, though.
posted by tangerine 09 June | 14:18
No.
posted by brujita 09 June | 14:23
So, are we, as teevee-watching human beings, pretty much past the era of water-cooler shows? Is there anything, ever, that almost everyone watches, these days?
posted by box 09 June | 14:32
I have never seen this thread. I have never even heard of it.
posted by psmealey 09 June | 14:43
Well, I didn't watch Dallas back in 1980 when everybody was all "who shot JR?" Things may not have changed that much.
posted by JanetLand 09 June | 14:45
To anyone who hasn't seen it, I'd recommend the first four seasons. These last two seasons have been so wishy-washy, but the first four were excellent. Probably as good as any movie I saw that came out during those years.
posted by mullacc 09 June | 14:53
I kind of drifted off during the Joey Patns/Steve Buscemi years, but this last demi-season has been pretty spectacular.
posted by psmealey 09 June | 14:56
Having made it less than halfway through a viewing of "Godfather I" and realizing I had ZERO empathy for or interest in anybody on the screen, I totally passed on "Sopranos". Oddly, I'm similarly turned off by "The Office". It's been hard the last year to even watch shows that DO interest me like "Heroes", which is why I'm not getting my byline in the TV section of MSNBC.com anymore. Maybe after Sunday I'll make myself spend Prime Time channel-surfing instead of web-surfing for a week.
posted by wendell 09 June | 15:06
Funny, I was just reading something about the Sopranos and it occurred to me I'd never seen it either.
posted by George_Spiggott 09 June | 15:17
I've never seen the Sopranos either. Nor have I watched the Godfather. No interest in the genre whatsover.
posted by Doohickie 09 June | 15:23
My boyfriend had never seen an episode (and staunchly insisted he had no interest) till a couple of months ago, when he was finally swayed by my raving (and his friend's raving) to start watching the whole series. He's now an addict -- there have been a few times he's had to force himself to go to sleep rather than stay up all night watching it compulsively.

Mullacc, I agree that the first 3 seasons were spectacular, but I actually think the 4th season was pretty weak (I just watched the Christopher Columbus episode and was reminded how badly written it seemed [NOT SPOILERISH!]). The 5th season seemed better by comparison, and then the 6th/7th season combo has veered wildly between excellent and tedious.
posted by scody 09 June | 15:33
I've seen the first two seasons. I will probably watch them all, gradually, via netflix (just watched the 2nd season a couple months ago). I like the genre, and I quite like the Sopranos, but I don't love it. It's OK.

there's a ringing endorsement for you!
posted by gaspode 09 June | 15:41
I've only ever seen one episode. FWIW.
posted by jonmc 09 June | 16:56
I love the genre, I always have, even though I abhor the violence. It's weird but the thing that makes the show great, is not that it's some sort of Shakespearean or Aeschylan morality play, far from it. It's how the actors fully inhabit the characters. A lot of actors can do "great", Brando pulling off the stateliness of Vito Corleone, Pacing expressing the internal conflict of Michael, DeNiro revelling in the malevolence of Al Capone, etc. What Gandolfini pull off is the banality of the characters. The simpering, self-pitying tough guy with unresolved mommy issues that leads a crew of brutal men, with similar issues. Edie Falco's thoroughly amoral housewife cheerfully overlooking the source of their income to worry about consumerist issues. And so on.

I dunno why, but to me that's what has made it something special.
posted by psmealey 09 June | 16:59
No cable.
posted by casarkos 09 June | 17:27
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE If anyone does watch the season finale: NO SPOILERS! It generally takes ages for that show to reach the UK and trying to avoid what happens is really tricky, especially as the outcomes can be mentioned on things like Google News and the Yahoo! home page.
posted by TheDonF 09 June | 17:45
I have not seen an episode.
posted by CitrusFreak12 09 June | 18:13
I have never seen it. I don't doubt that it's great, but I sometimes go out of my way to avoid violence in TV and movies. Don't need it.

That said, I am predicting that the guy whacks the shrink in the finale. You read it here first.

(It's impossible to avoid hearing ABOUT it, in the media and Internet outlets that I take in.)
posted by danf 09 June | 18:23
I'm with scody on how I feel about the past seasons of Sopranos. There were times when I missed episodes and didn't particularly care. I'll rather be glad when it's over. There are certain characters I could have done without (AJ).
I'm not a fan of "The Office" either. Or "30 Rock". And there are other shows I've never seen, such as "Reba", "Gilmore Girls", "Brothers and Sisters", "Men in Trees". Even "Everybody Loves Raymond" I only started watching in reruns. I'd rather chat with people on the internet (here). Except for "House", "Scrubs", and "The Closer". Them, I love.
posted by redvixen 09 June | 18:33
scody: When I originally wrote that comment, I only included the first three seasons. I changed it to the first four seasons only because I was so satisfied with the fate of Ralphie. But, overall, I agree with you--the first 3 standout from the rest.
posted by mullacc 09 June | 18:54
Never saw it.
posted by mischief 09 June | 19:00
I've never seen an episode of The Sopranos.
posted by shane 09 June | 19:24
Never seen it either.
posted by plinth 09 June | 19:26
I've never seen it. The library where I work has all of the DVDs, and all of my coworkers are rabid fans and regularly suspend work activities to discuss the latest plot twists. I've still never seen it.
posted by initapplette 09 June | 19:28
I'm not ashamed of owning, loving, and spending an inordinate amount of time watching television. But I have never watched the Sopranos. Following are the movie/television genres I think are played out:

Gangster
Hospital
Police Drama (although the Police Musical genre seems woefully unexplored)

Thank you for your time and consideration,
Otis, former TV town drunkard
posted by Otis 09 June | 19:38
I've never seen an episode of The Sopranos.


...the final episode. I've seen all the others.
posted by agropyron 09 June | 20:20
Never seen it.
posted by chewatadistance 09 June | 20:50
Btw, Tony snapes Dumbledore.
posted by cortex 09 June | 21:30
I haven't seen it either. Not exactly through lack of interest, though. We don't have HBO, but they started playing the first (I think) season on Showcase. I didn't realise it until they were several episodes into it. I'll rent it at some point in the future.

The only two shows I try to make sure I watch are House (I just started this last season, I'll rent the previous seasons sooner or later) and The Ghost Whisperer (shut up).
posted by deborah 09 June | 21:54
Who am I? What am I doing here?
posted by mudpuppie 10 June | 02:38
I watched part of one episode, was repelled by the fact that someone was getting killed or beaten in every other scene, asked myself why on earth I would ever spend any time watching or caring about such awful people, and then never watched it again.
posted by Orange Swan 11 June | 00:22
Love TV. Haven't seen this show. Love Falco & Gandolfini too, based on whatever little bits of them I've seen on late night shows & in cameos elsewhere. Don't have HBO. That's part of it, but not all of it. I'd like to see Six Feet Under and Deadwood too. But it feels like when you're in your senior year of college & wish you had majored in art history or sociobiology instead. Too late, for this lifetime, unless I stop time (and the onslaught of fresh, new and interesting shows) to catch up.
posted by PY 11 June | 02:53
Never saw an episode. It's been so hyped now, that any new viewer would probably say, "eh?"
posted by King of Prontopia 11 June | 10:08
Never seen it, never heard of it anywhere except MeFi/MeCha. I suspect that you guys all made it up just to fuck with my head.
posted by dg 12 June | 02:36
John Lautner Blowout Sale || Radio b - Rudie Can't Fail

HOME  ||   REGISTER  ||   LOGIN