With our first round pick, Team Emerald City is proud to select, in the category of
Crime/Law, the show that changed everything... How could I not take it?
The Sopranos
As its tagline suggests, The Sopranos not only redefined the idea of the gangster genre in American culture, it redefined what was possible in the medium of television itself. Such intense artistic license, character development and abstraction had rarely been seen before on the small screen, and the fact that it was met with such commercial success (on top of the obvious critical successes) had to have been seen as a bit of a surprise.
The Sopranos did what only the greatest cultural artifacts can do: it became an institution in and of itself. The postmodern gangster series offered up weekly critiques of contemporary life and events in ways so original, viewers could simply not get enough. We have David Chase and Tony Soprano to thank for opening the floodgates for it and the other US cable networks to continue to compete in the episodic format. They created an artistically brilliant show that was able to serve as THE template for what a television show could be. The fruits of their labours speak for themselves: Six Feet Under, The Shield, Deadwood, Rome, The Wire, Weeds, Mad Men, Entourage, Rescue Me and on and on and on...
It is difficult to imagine another show coming along anytime soon the scope and size of The Sopranos: both in terms of quality and in terms of cultural footprint.