A friend let me borrow his copy of The Sopranos: The Complete First Season on DVD, and I am very impressed. The show is full of great writing and acting. No wonder it won so many awards. Some of the awards the first season won are Five wins at the 2000 Golden Globe Awards including Best Television Series – Drama; Three wins at the 51st Emmy’s; Three wins at the 6th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards, One win at the 52nd Annual Directors Guild Awards and Seven more awards won from various other associations.

The story focuses on Tony Soprano (James Gandolfino), husband to Carmela (Edie Falco), loving father of two, and Capo in the North Jersey Mafia. The first season’s core story line is about Tony’s midlife crisis, his nightmare of a mother (Nancy Marchand) and Tony’s psychiatrist (Lorraine Bracco). Tony’s mother is driving her loving son crazy. The more he tries to help her, the more difficult she becomes. Added stress from Carmela, the kids, troubles at “work” and the departure of a family of ducks that had lived in his pool are just too much. He starts having blackouts and is sent to see a psychiatrist. Tony’s two lives collide in this in your face drama.

The Sopranos was turned down by network television, which it was originally intended for. The show was taken by HBO. This move turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Almost a full hour of uninterrupted airtime (and DVD time) makes the show longer than if there were 10-15 minutes of commercials. By being on HBO, more “realism” (after all it’s about a gangster) is possible through cursing, violence, nudity and other adult themes. Each episode is so well crafted that it feels like a movie, but a certain intimacy remains by the show being a series. Viewers get to know the characters and sympathize with them.

Tony and his crew treat each other with much respect as any family would. We even sometimes forget that these guys are criminals, that their way of running much of their business is illegal, and that they would kill if they had to. It’s funny that Tony Soprano is portrayed as a fish out of water. He’s such a lovable and big-hearted guy and yet he’s a captain in the mob. It’s rare that we see his dark side, but when we do, he can be a scary man.

The DVD collection itself is made up of four discs in a very nicely made fold out case, which also has an exterior box that it can be inserted in. The first three discs contain four episodes each and the last disc contains the season finale and the special features. The special features include a video interview with The Sopranos creator David Chase, two behind the scene’s featurettes, cast bios, links to the web.

The picture quality is superb in its 16:9 aspect ratio, and the 5.1 Dolby digital surround sound adds to the high quality of this collection. The menus are very easy to navigate and the repetitive dialogue and music are done very nicely. If you select an episode, you are first given a brief plot summary and the option to watch the “Previously On the Sopranos” and “Next on the Sopranos” segments which are shown before and after the show when they are shown on air. There are also chapter selections for each episode.

I only have a couple minor complaints about the DVD collection. The biggest is that when each episode was aired on HBO for the first time, they were shown two HBO channels at the same time, one wide screen and the other edited for television (full screen), but they both aren’t available on the DVD. I prefer the wide screen version anyway, but I know people with small TV’s would prefer to have full screen. Lack of subtitles isn’t a big problem, but it would have been a nice addition.

The Sopranos is one of the best series I have seen in a while. Definitely get a Complete First Season DVD collection if you already like the show. Watching it on DVD provides a much better picture and sound quality than when I watch it aired on HBO. The series is so good, I could watch the whole First Season strait through if I had 13 hours available. Listed as “Not Rated”, the show is definitely an “R” for language, violence, and nudity. If you’re okay with that, this relatively inexpensive collection will give you about 680 minutes of viewing pleasure.

Now my only dilemma is, do I buy a copy for myself or just mooch off my friend whenever I want to watch The Sopranos?

[This was my first attempt at shortening my lengthy reviews. I usually babble on and on. What do you think? Thanks for reading. :)]

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age