James Gandolfini dead at 51

[Stunsworth]

Together with The Wire, The Sopranos is the best American crime based TV series I've ever seen. Personally I'd say The Wire wins by a short nose, but it's a close run thing.

Breaking Bad is another excellent series - about a chemistry teacher with terminal cancer who decides to manufacture methamphetamine to supplement his medical insurance. Rather like The Sopranos the programme gets darker and darker as the series progress.

[Nick Armstrong]

So you'd recommend I give the series another whirl, Calibs? If, on a scale of 0-10 (10 most violent) The Killing is, say, a 6, where does Sopranos score in your view?

BW, kb

(*Bought skimmed milk & several tins of oily fish yesterday, did not replace butter or wine*)

Moderation in all things, kb!

As Mr Pee says, it's difficult to quantify but there are incidents where Sopranos scores a 10 on your scale (I seem to recall a couple of scenes in the backroom 'cutting and boning' area of 'Satriale's Pork Store' which made one wince ) and the language is ripe (which I don't mind - it's often amusing). I would definitely try. I was fortunate to have been lent the complete series by a friend who had all the boxes - I dithered for a year or so, but once in - no looking back!

[Belgrove]

Kernelbogey - The Sopranos is essentially I Claudius updated - the tale of a dysfunctional and ambitious extended family and their manoeuvrings for power, why even the matriarch is called Livia. It is a magnificent series and James Gandolfini's portrayal of Tony one of depth and subtlety despite the nature of the character. When the violence happens, it is meted out with brutality and appalling swiftness which is truly shocking, but then it is meant to be.

Sad news, he was a gifted character actor.

[Karafan]

Moderation in all things, kb!

As Mr Pee says, it's difficult to quantify but there are incidents where Sopranos scores a 10 on your scale (I seem to recall a couple of scenes in the backroom 'cutting and boning' area of 'Satriale's Pork Store' which made one wince ) and the language is ripe (which I don't mind - it's often amusing). I would definitely try. I was fortunate to have been lent the complete series by a friend who had all the boxes - I dithered for a year or so, but once in - no looking back!

One of my favourite scenes for naked, inexcusable violence without regard to the setting, has to be the ineffable Paulie 'Walnuts' Gualtieri's contretemps with someone who'd moved on to his patch to do landscape gardening and a little light tree pruning.... remember that one?!! Like you, the language never bothers me in the least. But the tortured characters (in the existentital, rather than the physical, sense!) trying to reconcile their lives and livelihoods makes for fascinating viewing.

All that and a goodly shot of black humour, especially the examples provided by Uncle Jun' and Tony's breathtakingly manipulative mother Livia, made for 87 episodes I have watched time and again. Unbeatable!

K.

[Mr Pee]

http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/celebrity/heaven-hit-by-mysterious-fires-2013062173031