A Guardian writer resisted The Sopranos as a suspected Analyse This spin-off
The Guardian writer initially resisted The Sopranos in 1999 because it arrived at the same time as Analyse This, the comedy starring Robert De Niro as a mafia boss who enlists a psychiatrist's help. The writer suspected a brazen attempt to make a TV spin-off from the same premise.
The box set of the first series corrected that. The writer watched it in practically a single sitting, pausing only for snacks and toilet breaks, curtains drawn. The critic called it a new mode of television, one that showed the medium could exceed cinema.
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The suspicion was reasonable: a mobster in therapy was already the premise of a current comedy, so a TV version would have looked like the laziest possible move. The box set did the persuading.
The format may have done as much as the quality: the box set invites the single-sitting plunge that turns a skeptical viewer into a convert.