Why after 25 years, 'The Sopranos' is greatest TV drama of all time

In its heyday, a couple of weeks before “The Sopranos” would return for a new season, HBO sent critics the first four episodes.

And that was the next four hours of my day.

The show is celebrating its 25th anniversary, and although I only became a TV critic after its first season ended, few if any series have had as big an impact on me as a critic and a fan.

It didn’t matter what else was going on, where I had to be, whatever other deadlines I was fighting. I sat down with my tapes, slipped the first one into the VCR (this was a while ago) and watched. Then I watched the next one, and the next one, and the next one. I’ve loved a lot of shows in the years since, but none have forced me to carve out several hours of my day (or night, or both) like “The Sopranos” did. It was that good and, to me at least, that meaningful.

When did 'The Sopranos' premiere?

The show, created by a veteran TV writer named David Chase, premiered on Jan. 10, 1999. This is truly one of the watershed moments not just in TV but in popular culture.

Of course I am not the only person who feels this way. It’s arguably the greatest show in the history of television; certainly it’s in the count-them-on-one-hand list of best dramas. It was unlike anything that came before it, to use the phrase that people typically don’t really mean when they say it.

But in this case it’s true. “The Sopranos” is the show that kicked off the rise of the TV antihero and a second golden age of television, thanks to a once-in-a-lifetime performance by the late James Gandolfini as Tony Soprano.

Tony's struggles to balance his two families — one at home, one with the mobsters he’s the boss of — have driven him into a depression. Mob boss sees shrink: That’s the premise, but there is so much more to it than that.

In addition to Gandolfini, the stellar cast includes Edie Falco as Tony’s wife, Carmela; Lorraine Bracco as Tony’s psychiatrist, Dr. Melfi; musician Steven Van Zandt as Tony’s lieutenant Silvio; Michael Imperioli as Tony’s nephew and fellow mobster Christopher; and Tony Sirico as Paulie “Walnuts,” a rather dim but dangerous associate of Tony’s.

The show ran six seasons, with far too many great episodes to allow for too deep a dive into all of them. Instead, I’ll mention two. They aren’t deep cuts or anything — they’re well-known for a reason. They’re great.

The best moments in 'The Sopranos'

The first is Episode 5 of Season 1, “College.” This is when the show gets great. Tony takes Meadow (Jamie-Lynn Sigler) on college visits. At a stop for gas, he sees a man he thinks is a rat who squealed and has entered the witness-protection program. Tony pursues him for the rest of the episode, while Meadow is intermittently curious, but mostly focused on interviews and partying with students. It’s here where Tony’s two families, which he tries to keep separate, come together, in hilarious and violent ways.

It’s also the episode where Tony kinda, sorta acknowledges to his daughter that maybe all of his income doesn’t come from the waste-management consulting business. It also establishes Tony as a murderous thug, who would only grow worse over time.

Critics used to gather twice a year at the Television Critics Association meetings, and Chase and Gandolfini would seem puzzled at why audiences responded to Tony so strongly. He’s a monster, they would say, and the worse they make him, the more people like him. Surely they weren’t really confused about this. The answer is easy: Gandolfini. His performance is the most perfect marriage of actor and role I’ve ever seen, in any medium. No matter what horrific crime Tony is committing, Gandolfini allows shreds of humanity to bubble to the surface. It’s astounding. You don’t necessarily have to like Tony, but you absolutely cannot turn away from him.

The finale of 'The Sopranos' still angers audiences

The other episode is, you guessed it, the series finale. (Spoiler alert if this has somehow escaped your consciousness.) After a mob war has left members of Tony’s crew dead, he meets with his family at a diner. There’s a hilariously drawn-out bit with Meadow trying to park her car. All of the TV-watching world knew this was the finale, and presumably they had clocks, so they knew time was running out on the episode and the series. Did the man going to the bathroom mean anything — a “Godfather”-type hit job, maybe? What about how they were seated? Any meaning in ordering onion rings? And then, as the anticipation and anxiety reaches a fever pitch … nothing.

The screen famously goes black, and stays black. My friend Bill Keveney, who used to write about TV for USA Today, watched the finale with me. Both of us were on deadline; he was terrified that my cable had gone out.

It hadn’t. Instead, Chase had done what he did from the first episode: considered expectations and laughed at them. This was the ending he wanted and the ending he got. He refused to wrap things up in a neat little bow. If HBO or fans of the show wanted something more definitive, too bad. It wasn’t Chase thumbing his nose at them. It was giving them something better than they realized they wanted. (To be fair, the ending didn’t work for everyone.)

I have so many stories associated with the show — my niece walking around with Robert Iler, who played Tony’s son, at the television critics awards. An HBO publicist hustling me into the green room before the show’s session in front of critics one season, where the cast was just milling about, me among them.

But the best memories are ones I can revisit simply by rewatching the show, streaming on Max. I don’t set aside four hours at a time anymore, but I’d love to. So much has changed in the 25 years since the show debuted, including TV itself. Cheers to “The Soprano” for helping to kick off the revolution.

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How to watch 'The Sopranos'

Streaming on Max.

Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. X, formerly known as Twitter: @goodyk.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Why is 'The Sopranos' so popular? Because after 25 years it holds up