The Sopranos Revisited

11/01/14 • 53 min

Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 94, in which I revisit one of the greatest shows ever to have been on television: The Sopranos. The occasion is the release by HBO of The Sopranos: The Complete Series on Blu-ray and Digital HD on November 4, 2014, containing the complete 86-episode run of the series, as well as bonus feautures including a new documentary, "Defining a Television Landmark," in which I'm interviewed. To commemorate this release, I've prepared a special episode of this podcast with my reviews of the final nine episodes of the series, recorded minutes after each episode ended, along with three additional pieces with my thoughts in the days after the finale. These originally appeared on another one of my podcasts, Levinson News Clips, which has been unavailable for the past few years. Enjoy.

See also my written reviews of the final nine episodes of The Sopranos: First of Nine, Second of Nine, Third of Nine, Fourth of Nine, Fifth of Nine, Sixth of Nine, Seventh of Nine, Eighth of Nine, Ninth of Nine: The Anti-Ending Ending

And subsequent thoughts on the ending: The Sopranos, or the Tiger? ... The Sopranos End and the Closure Junkies ... The Sopranos and Hamlet

See also The Sopranos as a Nuts-and-Bolts Triumph of Non-Network TV my 2002 article

And my 90-minute interview with Dominic Chianese And see: The Essential Sopranos Reader (University of Kentucky Press) ... papers and essays from the May 2008 Sopranos Symposium at Fordham University

I was in some good company in Defining a Television Landmark

And subsequent thoughts on the ending: The Sopranos, or the Tiger? ... The Sopranos End and the Closure Junkies ... The Sopranos and Hamlet

See also The Sopranos as a Nuts-and-Bolts Triumph of Non-Network TV my 2002 article

And my 90-minute interview with Dominic Chianese And see: The Essential Sopranos Reader (University of Kentucky Press) ... papers and essays from the May 2008 Sopranos Symposium at Fordham University

I was in some good company in Defining a Television Landmark

Previous Episode

The Selfie and Marshall McLuhan

Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 93, in which I explore how Marshall McLuhan's "tetrad" or four laws of media, first publicly propounded in the mid-late 1970s, can explain the "selfie" which didn't exist until a few years ago and is so vividly in evidence today.

This is the photograph which instigated this train of thought - thanks to Ian Bogost for pushing it out of the station.

You might also enjoy this podcast episode: Marshall McLuhan and the Kindle. See also Tetrad on Eyeglasses Fliiping into Google Glass and Photography Flips into Snapchat.

more about McLuhan

Next Episode

Outlander: First Half Season

Welcome to Light On Light Through, Episode 95, in which I review several pivotal episodes of Outlander, one of my favorite new television series, debuting in the Fall of 2014.

Links to my written reviews of these episodes -

Outlander 1.1-3: The Hope of Time Travel
Outlander 1.6: Outstanding
Outlander 1.7: Tender Intertemporal Polygamy
Outlander 1.8: The Other Side

and more time travel in Loose Ends, Hugo-nominated novella - "Paul Levinson has taken the brilliant step of combining the emotional impact of two tragic American events ... But Levinson does much more. He creates a love story set against the evocative portrait of New York City." -Michael Burstein, Tangent