tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458341.post4726912891995133978..comments2024-01-06T10:36:04.084-05:00Comments on A Commonplace Blog: No one left to whackD. G. Myershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10659136455045567825noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458341.post-35376023017423548332014-01-12T15:56:04.526-05:002014-01-12T15:56:04.526-05:00I came across this blogpost just today, and I am a...I came across this blogpost just today, and I am afraid I disagree strongly with the premise that arc shows are new, or that The Sopranos was the first true one on US TV.<br /><br />1. Arc shows basically are just a more sophisticated narrative variation of soap operas. They came about when regular show-writers decided they wanted some of that addictive soap opera and telenovela action. <br /><br />2. Night-time soaps like Dallas far predated The Sopranos.<br /><br />3. Anime had tons of arc shows for years and years before US TV did, mostly because they were manga/comics adaptations, but partly because the Japanese "dramas" include tons of telenovela-like shows.<br /><br />4. Mr. Bellisario's mystery and sf shows have consistently included as much arc story as he could reasonably get away with, at time of production. JAG was his first full-blown arc show.<br /><br />Somewhat similarly, The X-Files was a highly successful arc show for its first few seasons, before Chris Carter gave up....<br /><br />5. Of course Babylon 5 came out years before The Sopranos, had an extremely tight arc despite being viewable in random syndication order, and was much more successful in fulfilling its promises than any US arc show beforehand. J. Michael Straczynski had in fact done his first series, Captain Power, as an arc show. He'd also done the famous "Janine, You've Changed" episode, which cleverly created a sinister arc out of years of unpurposeful character design changes on The Real Ghostbusters cartoon.<br /><br />6. Many, many US cartoons were produced as tight arc shows despite random syndication. For example, BKN's Starship Troopers, the much earlier Exosquad, and a fair number of others which were copying the success of Star Blazers, Samurai Troopers, Robotech, and other US translations of Japanese arc shows. (Ironically, Robotech actually was rewritten by the US translators to create a single story in three eras out of three totally separate animes. Voltron did the same thing less successfully with two shows.)<br /><br />Anyway... my point was that this sort of thing had been bubbling under the surface for quite a while. The Sopranos was more a well-executed capitalization on an old concept, rather than a totally new thing.Bansheehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12594214770417497135noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458341.post-43780807630790738582013-08-13T12:44:59.256-04:002013-08-13T12:44:59.256-04:00Bill,
Yes.
—DavidBill,<br /><br />Yes.<br /><br />—DavidD. G. Myershttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10659136455045567825noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458341.post-59348515236790043212013-08-13T12:26:43.787-04:002013-08-13T12:26:43.787-04:00While the cop shows of the '80s advanced their...While the cop shows of the '80s advanced their characters' stories over several season, "Soap," a sitcom in the '70s, also did the same thing.<br /><br />My conundrum is that I'm a "Twin Peaks" fan and a Commonplace blog reader, so should I attack myself?Bill Peschelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15257587479467531187noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458341.post-80748516700130999502013-08-13T10:49:14.636-04:002013-08-13T10:49:14.636-04:00Oddly enough, although I'm not a fan of 'T...Oddly enough, although I'm not a fan of 'The Sopranos' and i really enjoyed 'The Wire', I reckon 'The Sopranos' is a superior series. 'The Wire' is a series in which characterisation is wholly subordinated to theme. The characters are mostly stereotypes but this is counter-balanced by a very conscious attempt to examine why and how a city-state goes 'wrong'. Sometimes I found it a bit too self-conscious.*<br /><br />'The Sopranos' doesn't wear its intelligence on its sleeve: it's character-driven rather than thematic in intent. Themes evolve out of the characters rather than the other way round. To a non-American, the principle theme seems to be the American dream and how it's gone sour. Tony is a criminal and a psychopath. That's the hook. But he's also a small businessman. I'm guessing the latter is the reason why people identify with him - and are meant to identify with him.<br /><br />* I loved 'Homicide: Life on the Streets' and reckon Simon made a conscious attempt to do something as different from it as possible. If 'Homicide' is jazz, then 'The Wire' is a symphony. Each has its own merits.Aonghus Fallonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09434527113873901741noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3458341.post-1408843151586021902013-08-12T22:48:32.918-04:002013-08-12T22:48:32.918-04:00Good analysis. Other possibility is that he is not...Good analysis. Other possibility is that he is not a real-world Mafioso at all (my main evidence for this is that in the real world they, and other sociopaths, are by the laws of God and nature nowhere near as eloquent as many of the Mafiosos in the show), he is a well-spoken former high school football star married to Carmela. He is a union carpenter or school teacher or something who dies in a restaurant, at the moment of death he goes back to his most poetic moment (sympathy for the waterfowl) and guiltily breimagines his life from that point on as an encyclopedia of disgusting violence (the sin of lack of empathy) and unreligioned New Jersey culture. No pre-death call to a relationship with God from Jesus, Italian-American or otherwise, here. Hence the sudden brutal ending and the devastating (for the waterfowl relationship,anyway) beginning. Or else, as you pointed out, it is just one show among many, an incoherent fantasy and the flotsam and jetsam of HBOs appropriation of the available artistic talent to make bankable money.stephen cnoreply@blogger.com