"The Sopranos": an exercise in "WTF?!"

(...and not in a good way...)

I was trying to come up with how to sum up this latest season of "The Sopranos", but I think this Salon article covers it pretty well. (Unless you subscribe, you'll need to watch a short commercial to see it... Also, it's full of spoilers, so don't bother if you still haven't seen it.)

The first paragraph has a quote that sums it up:

[...] it was hard not to shake our fists at the sky and moan, "We waited two years, for this?" Why do the gods mock us so?

The show had it's moments, for sure. Funny little touches, touching little moments, and a couple of shocks and surprises. But it set up a whole situation where there really weren't enough surprises, though they keep setting you up with a sense that "the other shoe's gonna drop". Any time now... we're waiting!

It's like the writers spent all their time coming up with clever little scene-change contrasts (like the "Paris sculptures"/"Bada-Bing sign" mentioned in the article), or little cinematic homages (a scene where Vito is in bed with new-found, uh, identity, cuts to one of Bobbie's model trains going into a tunnel. Gee, guess what happened? *cough*)

Anyway, it's kind of dissappointing, and to top it off, we've got to wait another 6 months or so to get to the final 8 episodes. After waiting 2 years already. That's probably the real irritant to the whole thing.

Oh well, "Deadwood" season 3 starts next week... Hooray! Though that means my Sunday nights will still be occupied this summer. *sigh*

And "Doctor Who" is blazing along full-steam, with the most current episode ending on quite a Lovecraftian cliffhanger. Nothing like a little Cthulhu shenannigans to add a creepy terror to a campy BBC sci-fi series!