The excellent book Difficult Men: Behind the Scenes of a Creative The Sopranos on HBO in January of 1999, television found itself squarely ensconced in a new “third” golden age. Assuming you agree with that assessment, and hold to that general time frame of a beginning - and I do - I thought it would be fun to go series by series, season by season, and vote for what we all think was (is) the best episode of each season. And then, for even MORE fun, at series’ end, we can go back and pit each season’s winning episode against one another.
So, for starters, let’s begin with the series that arguably ushered in this latest golden age of TV, The Sopranos. If it’s been awhile and you need a refresher, here’s a brief synopsis of each season one episode: The Sopranos (season 1) - Wikipedia
Urgh. I sort of garbled that first sentence and missed the edit window. Anyway, Brett Martin’s book Difficult Men posits the theory that the airing of The Sopranos plunged us deep into the “third golden age” of television. Whether you agree with that or not (I do), if you’re a Sopranos fan, you might enjoy voting in this poll.
Good grief.
I wasn’t aware that there were any previous golden ages. There have been a few good shows through the decades, but I don’t think there were any clusters, so I’d be sceptical that this is the “third”.
It’s been so long since I’ve seen those early episodes, but the ones that stand out from memory are “College” and “A Hit is a Hit.” I’m voting for “College” because of the way it really focused on Tony’s dual lives and the problems that arise when they intersected.
College is the only episode from that first season that I immediately remember the plot for from the title only. I remember a lot of other scenes from the first season, but I don’t recall which scene matched with which episode.
If you were introducing someone to The Sopranos, College would be an ideal choice. And if you only had five minutes to introduce someone to The Sopranos, the “Are you in the Mafia?” conversation between Meadow and Tony is the ideal choice.
For me, it was a close call between AHIAH and TLOTM, but AHIAH won out, mostly because I always liked the character of Hesh Rafkin. Too bad they didn’t use him more.