You’re not going to believe this, but studies indicate that women comprise 85% of ABC’s online viewing audience. And here I was all this time, thinking the traditional alpha male fell in love with shows like October Road, Eli Stone & Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. The times they are a changin’, indeed.

Denis Leary, Elaine Benes & Marc Cuban will be three of many that donate their voices to this upcoming season of The Simpsons, increasing the popularity of the historic show’s irrelevance. Their was about a five year stretch wherein The Simpsons was the premiere comedy on television, but for the past eight years or so it has been dying the slowest death imaginable. Just imagine if Seinfeld was still making new episodes how tired they would seem, then multiply it by ten. That’s where we’re at with The Simpsons. God, this is just depressing, moving on.

Hey, you ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes of bizarre, repetitive though I’m sure technically sound episode of South Park? Well, wait no longer my belabored friend, the feature is now available on their website with the episode “Major Boobage“. We weren’t particularly fond of the episode, but its worth a look never the less.

Finally, there will be some reasonable conflict on Entourage. It appears the high life the four protagonists have been living for four seasons will be deflated a tad as they struggle to make a lavish living. Given, its not The Wire, we don’t have people struggling with heroin addiction or anything. But if the series is going to stay on the air, we appreciate the minor alteration.

If you haven’t seen any Mad Men episodes and yearn to potentially help boost their DVD revenue, you can watch the pilot episode online. We would highly recommend this, but without an outlet to watch the rest of the series, if you’re not into buying DVD’s there isn’t much point. If you need a superficial reason to watch, an entire episode could be Christina Hendricks washing her car and we’d be sufficiently entertained.

Speaking of which, its almost imperative to the future of AMC that you buy the DVD, since they dropped $25 million promoting the second season. “We’re treating this like a movie opening” says the marketing president for the network. And I could see the benefits of that, but do most movies spend $25 million in promotions?

And finally, fresh off his oddly miscast role as Abomination or whatever the guy’s name was in The Hulk, Tim Roth is heading to the small screen with the FOX pilot Lie To Me, in which he plays a “human lie detector”. Simply put, this will probably be melodramatic tripe. My question is, whose decision was it to cast the bellboy from Four Rooms as a martial arts expert in the military, because it was surreal.

That’s it until Monday, have a great fourth. We recommend celebrating your country’s independence by blowing up a small piece of it.

Both should make some decent coin, as Friends has an overwhelmingly sycophantic, predictable audience that will laugh at anything, while Arrested Development carries a very vocal, very pretentious and often times very annoying but loyal fan base. Take me for example, I’m currently wearing a Bluth Frozen Banana t-shirt with a giant sprinting banana on the back. When I wear it in public, people think it’s some sort of allegiance to the gay community. Do I look at them with disdain and an air of superiority because of their blatant homophobia? No. I look at them with disdain and an air of superiority because they’re fucking morons for not watching a TV show I watch.

So yes, I will be there, opening night, scowling at all the patrons in line for the latest Adam Sandler or Julia Roberts vehicle that has an opening weekend concurrent with AD’s. Thing is, I think they only averaged about two million viewers an episode which would tally roughly $20 million box office. I’ve turned about ten people on to AD since its cancellation, if everyone of the two million strong did the same then that number should increase…But yeah, in actuality, they might need to release this in the early spring so it doesn’t get slaughtered.

If the Bluth family were real, this is how they would spend their days.

As for the Friends movie, I can’t even fathom the things I would do to not see this. Luckily this is a free society and to avoid seeing it I just avoid seeing it. But if someone were to put a gun to my head and gave me the ultimatum to either set an animal shelter on fire, see Friends or meet my maker…then I’m afraid some puppies would have to die.

It’s clear the only reason everyone in the cast is on board is in direct response to the cast’s limited post-Friends success. And that, in and of itself, is hardly a reason to shell out $10 for an adaptation of a pretty formulaic TV show that I hardly ever watched in the first place. The movie will probably be hesitantly accepted by its fans, like they know it’s bad but they don’t want to admit it. You ever hear a die hard Sex and The City fan reflect on the movie? And I don’t mean the fembot NYC drones that shape their lives around this show, I mean like real people? It always begins with, “It wasn’t like the TV show…” and then ends with, “…But yeah, yeah, it was fun”, like their conscious won’t allow them to out and out hate the movie. This is verbatim, how I imagine the reaction to the Friends movie being.

If you happen to dislike both of these shows, but are a fan of 24, Lost, Desperate Housewives, CSI or whatever the hell else ABC airs nowadays, then don’t worry, I have a hunch that your favorite characters will get their theatrical release soon enough.

Mainly we wanted to comment on the Rescue Me mini-episodes (I’d rather be drenched in honey and eaten alive by fire ants than use the phrase “minisode” without at least sarcastic quotations). While they’ve been funny at moments, it really is too much of a tease as well as something of a nuisance. I mean, I don’t watch TV really, so there is never anything on Tuesday nights at 10pm that I want to see. But if there were and I still don’t have a recorder of some sort, then I have to cut into the show I planned on watching for five minutes of witty banter.

On top of that, you barely have time to assimilate yourself to the show and soak in the characters before they roll the “mini-credits”. The whole thing is like a lap-dance from a woman you have absolutely no chance with. Never the less, if my ringing endorsement is enough to draw you in, the installments can actually be watched here should you decide this is worth your time.

With the second season of Mad Men less than a month away, we went ahead and pre-ordered the first season DVD’s (actually arrived a day before the official release), and let me just say that the packaging alone on this set is creative enough that it’s like the Helena of Troy of DVD seasons. That’s right, it has the potential to start wars. One of our favorite TV critics actually criticized the set for excessive episode commentaries (it would appear the talent is a little too pleased with themselves). We haven’t gotten around to watching any of the extras on the DVD, though we did see a “Best of Mad Men” half hour special during lunch a few days ago. It was enough to keep us out of work for twenty minutes longer than is necessary and make us pine for the free time to peruse such features on the DVD.

Suddenly I find I’m fending off the urge to smoke. It’s even prettier than the below picture.

Speaking of DVD’s, I have some bad news for all Sopranos fans who have made a point to buy every season on DVD. David Chase and the fine blood-sucking folks over at HBO have opted to release a box set of epic proportions. Now, usually when this is the case, in which something is repackaged and upgraded to be considered the “ultimate” collectors item, I tend to wipe my ass with the shameless capitalism and manipulation. The bonuses that vary from one DVD set to the next tend to be something along the lines of a gag reel and a folded up, crinkled poster they cram inside the box.

But with this new Sopranos incarnation, I think I’m going to have to buy it at its outrageous $400 price tag (The Sopranos first season was the first season of television I ever bought on DVD, and I fully expected every season of every show to run me somewhere in between $60 and $80, so I was delighted when I could get The Wire, FNL, Curb & Mad Men all for under $40). Literally, it has everything that the individual seasons did not: alternate endings, deleted scenes, lost scenes (shit that happened off camera that was in the series), actor, director, writer interviews, three soundtrack discs and even an interview with David Chase by Alec Baldwin (what?). This is like if I was seven years old again, and it had suddenly begun to rain candy like I had always hoped.

The only dilemma is they are planning on doing something similar with The Wire now because HBO is dead set on seeing me live beyond my means. Their plans are a little less polished than those for The Sopranos, because the mafia hit will be an enormous pay day for everyone involved. But with the pending release of the fifth season, do I bite the bullet and purchase it, or do I wait until the probable December release of the box set (mind you, I’m selling all my seasons for both series’ if I invest in the box sets)? This is truly a test of wills for over-privileged fucks like myself.

Back with a couple more random posts today.

I’m sure at some point they will have Andy attempt to justify this in one of his rants. Something along the lines of they will find another lacky to smuggle their drugs for them, she’s just profiting off the inevitable. Which is all fine and well and I understand this is a satire, But the tone of the series seems to almost encourage her participation instead of just begrudgingly accept it as a virtually harmless reality.

I just want to make it clear that I’m not morally outraged. No, I’m simply annoyed that the series couldn’t seem to grow within their given confines. This is like if Tony Soprano had up and moved south to sell pots in Peru like he often referenced, or if Tommy Gavin had stayed with Sheila at the beach house. If either of these series made those changes it would be a complete upheaval from what we were accustom too, and most likely piss off viewers something fierce. We want to see Those two getting into as much shit as possible, not meandering around casually and comfortably while life happens in lieu of them.

As our way of making amends for being out of service, here’s Mary-Louise Parker’s naked, digitally enhanced ass. Enjoy.

This is probably in step with the ever changing genre of the series, which is now the lightest dark comedy of all time. So far, the punchlines have involved illegal immigration, “dead Iraqi children”, prison rape, euthanasia and parental absenteeism. If it wasn’t already prefaced as a comedy, it wouldn’t exactly be a barrel of laughs. Again, not terrible, but in almost stark contrast to everything we’ve come to like about the series.

Still, we get a lot of enjoyment out of watching Justin Kirk interact with Albert Brooks, and we’re ecstatic that Kevin Nealon will be joining the Botwins in their sleepy coastal town. We’re just going to accept the fact that the series is completely different from when it was set in Agrestic. Which is fine, we were growing tired of Majestic and welcome the change. I just wish the series creators would recognize that fact and quit teetering between what was and what will be.

Extremely busy at work today, we’ll try to get a post up about the mini Rescue Me episodes if possible. Hence why we guaranteed multiple postings for the tomorrow, not today.

I apologize for any inconvenience, we understand that there are anywhere from 3 to 7 people (wishful thinking) who rely on this site as some sort of diversion from work on a daily or semi-daily basis. This is, of course, an absurd way to spend your time. But I appreciate your readership regardless, and am humbled that you would invite me into your office, however briefly. With that said, we promise, to never quit you again.

In the meantime, there was plenty we missed along the way, especially on the newsfront, but also recaps of two Weeds episodes, two Rescue Me mini-episodes annnddd…well, I think that’s the extent of it actually. Man, time really grinds to a halt when there’s nothing to distract you from its minutia. Seriously, it feels like the last time I posted on this site I was just learning how to fly, and here I am, spanning the globe with nothing more than a yellow and orange metallic body suit, righting my wrongs and avenging the deaths of the innocent, whose tragic deaths I now feel my prior moral flexibilities are at least partially responsible for. Yes, the site has been down too long, why do you ask?

But anyways, enough about my hobbies. I’ll be posting multiple times per day starting Thursday, and probably through next week. Again, we wholeheartedly apologize here at Grid Effect and will do everything to ensure this will never happen again. This is kind of a meaningless promise, given that we’re about as helpless as a fish in quicksand when it comes to IT, and most other facets of living.

Back tomorrow with a Weeds, episode 2 & 3 season four review.

How is it that musicians  are the most likely entertainers to bottom out and resort to some sort of reality programming, even when it appears they don’t have to? It appears that Xzibit, best known for Pimp My Ride fame but also released two solid rap albums before whoring himself on gimmicky MTV series. Now the “music” network has their claws in Janet Jackson.  Why is she doing this? Does she not have enough money? Is she paying off some of Michael’s debt? When you start following in the footsteps of Tyra Banks, it’s probably time to kiss the limelight goodbye.

In a move that shocks no one, Showtime has picked up the new Peter Tolan series starring Mathew Perry. It was either them or HBO given the bewildering noteworthy utterance of a certain profanity, and HBO is seems happy continuing their descent off the face of the earth.

It’s difficult to say who has had the better post-Friends career, a showtime series with frowned upon epithets might push Perry over the edge.

When people talk about the growing income disparity between the rich and the poor in this country, they always reference falling wages, outsourcing, etc. And all those things play a contributive role, but what about the Lifetime entertainment chief being married to the creator of the American Office? I’m not one to judge, people are free to earn a living any way they can within the confines of the law, but given that haves tend to marry haves and the have nots are left to each other, maybe that factors in as well.

Newsflash! Supposedly the much hyped Rescue Me “minisodes” are going to be humor-centric. Much to my surprise, you can’t tell a decent dramatic story with character the audience is already familiar with in five minutes. I guess my point is, is this even news? Shouldn’t everyone have just assumed that they would be comedic bits? Even those short Coke films they used to show before movies were generic stabs at comedy. I seriously doubt their going to kill off another one of Tommy Gavin’s kids in a five minute episode.

And finally, I’m going to end up on the Hollywood walk of fame. I don’t have set plans to put my hands in cement, but if you look at the current list of celebrities set to do so, then it stands a better chance than not that I will at some point in my life.

That’s it for today, have a good, most likely sports free weekend.

Peter Tolan, co-creator and writer on the now scorned Rescue Me, is developing a new series with Mathew Perry. In which the Friends alum will utter the seaward, or the “C” word to you non-Arrested Development fans and those who follow and understand English. Apparently we’re supposed to care about the slur, but what’s more shocking to me is that Peter Tolan is developing something without Dennis Leary, and Mathew Perry is still able to find work. It appears being married to Courtney Cox, be it in real life or in fiction, is terrible for your career.

There is talk of a Weeds spinoff in the works with Conrad and presumably Heylia. Normally I would applaud such a decision being that these are/were two of the better actors/characters on the series. But the writers are overwhelmed as it is since they seem to be making it up as they go with the Botwins, so I don’t know if they can handle the workload of writing for two series. And a new writing staff generally doesn’t write for already developed characters all that well (see: Family Guy).

Speaking of which, despite it slagging in quality, Weeds’ fourth season premiere brought Showtime the biggest audience it has ever had. It seems like this is a common theme for series’ on premium networks. That theme being, whenever one of their series’ takes an abnormally long hiatus, the premiere for the following season brings in a huge number (see: Sopranos season four premiere).

Steve Carell promises to be on board with The Office for at least three more seasons. We’re probably at a point now where the series could survive without him, but I am still amazed at his loyalty. This is like if Clooney were still on ER. Also in the link he states that he is fully expecting Amy Ryan to return for the fifth season, which gives the series more star power than any series we can remember.

We think she’s on to his fake serial killer ruse.

Actually, that honor might go to Damages, who is sporting a cast made up of Glenn Close, Ted Danson & now William Hurt. At this point, this series could just as easily be confused with an 80’s movie. Throw in a Michael Douglas or Emilio Estevez for a strong lead and BOOM! That shit would be box office gold twenty-five years ago.

I hate to crush everyone’s hopes, but Lyndsay Lohan is waiting until 2009 to submit her work on Ugly Betty for Emmy consideration. I know, just when you think things are looking on the up and up for her, she’s going to have to miss out on the booze soaked awards show.

US Magazine did a countdown of top reality TV villains. Omarosa led the pack, followed by some guy named Spencer Pratt, Johnny Fairplay and Puck from Real World: San Fransisco rounded out the top four. Um, I remember Omarosa from the first season of Apprentice, and she was a little loopy and a bit accusatory, but beyond that she wasn’t terribly villainous, just comical. Puck, on the other hand, verbally berated a terminally ill AIDS victim pretty much until he was dead and buried. What did Omarosa or “Spencer”– if that is your real name — ever do to top that?

Jason Bateman is now under contract with FOX to create series for them. This is great and all, but isn’t FOX the same network that canceled the critically acclaimed series that he was the lead actor on? Doesn’t this seem like a conflict of interests? He claims to be an “avid consumer of television”. In non-Hollywood speak that generally means you’re a lazy ass, not someone who creates multiple series for a broadcast network. This might not end well.

Finally, given that we have watched Meet The Press every week for the past two or three years, we would be amiss if we didn’t say something about Tim Russert, whose objective and impartial analysis and questioning represented the last bastion of respectable journalism on television. We have no idea who NBC will choose to replace him with, but whoever it is, those shoes he left behind will prove to be too big to fill. His absence will be palpable for years to come.

Links or something similar tomorrow.

7) The Sopranos - Season three

Best Episodes: “Employee of The Month”, “University”, “Pine Barrens”, “Amour Fou”

As far as fan favorites go, this and season one of The Sopranos probably rank one and two. Which has always surprised m, because season three is when this show redirects itself as a predominately morbid drama rather than a casual satire. Season three was building towards it, and you can pinpoint it to a single incident that they made the leap: When Ralphie killed his pregnant mistress in “University”…and Tony ended up letting him live. Through two and a half seasons we had almost come to admire some of these characters, especially Tony, and that wasn’t David Chase’s intent at all. So he managed to keep Ralphie as his antagonist, and make everyone else just as despicable as he thought they should be.

The Wire - Season two

Best Episodes: “Hot Shots”, “All Prologue”, “Storm Warnings”, “Port In A Storm”

Probably the least favorite season of hardcore Wire fans, mainly because it is the whitest and it was so startling coming of the street corner filled first season for the series to make such a dramatic shift to the loading docks. Simon’s obsession with parallelism and institutions is at its most raw here. We see Nick Sobotka (D’Angelo), Ziggy (Wallace) & Frank (Avon, we guess) playing a working class mirror image of their drug cartel counterpart. This season, in hindsight, was absolutely necessary. You can’t capture the image of a city until the plight of the working underclass is depicted, and if he had left this storyline out, he would have been ignoring a dominate sect of the population.

9) The Sopranos - Season Four

Best Episodes: “No Show”, “The Weight”, “Whoever Did This”, “Eloise”, “Whitecaps”

This season is most memorable for the separation that concluded probably the darkest and dreariest season of television that we can recall. There was a solid eighteen month hiatus in between seasons three and four, and during the layover 9/11 happened. There was some debate as to whether or not they would keep the shot of the towers in the opening credits and Chase opted against it under the premise that the series is supposed to reflect the day it is airing. And holy shit does he take that moniker seriously.

Chase always tried to reflect the times in his art. This season, the one following 9/11, was appropriately hopeless in more ways than one. As we were treated to tales of suicide, kids taking arrows through the chest, Tony’s murderous obsession with animals, red herrings, dementia and everything else in between. A work of art, without question, but one that few people can watch a second time.

Few things spark more warmth in the heart of a mobster than a horse who unknowingly and unwillingly runs races for you.

10) The Sopranos - Season Two

Best Episodes: “Commendatori”, “The Happy Wanderer”, “D-Girl”, “Full Leather Jacket”

This is where me and your average fan will more commonly butt heads. I’ve always felt that season two was too much of a replica of season one, and instead of building on the themes they laid out in the debut, they just rehashed the same points repeatedly. This season, even more so than one, is the most sympathetic to Tony Soprano and his ilk, but they gave us super-villain Richie Aprile, Furio, and introduced us to Janice, so it wasn’t in any way a total loss. This was by far the funniest season and the plot development, with everything from Chris’ shooting to his aspirations as a screenwriter, Tony’s waffling on therapy, Melfi’s professional conflicts and Big Puss’s demise are handled brilliantly. It just  comparatively brought little to the table in terms of actual subtext and character development.

11) The Wire - Season Five

Best Episodes: “Transitions”, “Clarifications”, “Late Editions”, “-30″

Fake serial killers, newspapers, politics, drugs, cops, robbers, internal conflict…Basically we thought this season of The Wire tried to do too much. It still turned into a phenomenal closing chapter, but there was much bitching about the lack of depth to essentially all of the newspaper characters sans Gus, and we attribute this to being the largest cast they’ve ever had, along with their shortest season by and episode and a half (the finale was ninety minutes). They gave the series a proper and satisfying conclusion, but the introduction of about ten new characters dropped it in these rankings considerably.

We’re not going to attest to the believability of the portrayal of the newsroom, because we’ve never worked in one, but so many of the characters were often one-dimensional caricatures that we weren’t used to seeing, if they had done a sixth season and fleshed them out, we probably wouldn’t feel this way. In short, given the scale of this series, it was almost impossible to end it appropriately, but we were more than pleased with the final product.

12) The Sopranos - Season 6A

Best Episodes: “Join The Club”, “Mr. & Mrs. John Sacrimoni Request”, “The Ride”, Cold Stones”

This wasn’t technically a full season, and we wonder if maybe we have it cellar-dwelling on this list, but this almost seemed like it was biding time for HBO just so they could squeeze a few more episodes out of a hit series. Still, they provided us with issues of homosexuality, drug use, traditional masculinity and theology. Actually, the series would have seemed small if not for these twelve episodes.

This season, even more so than the season that Tony almost died in, will probably be remembered as the Vito season more so than anything, and I’ve always maintained about Vito that when he is killed, you’re supposed to sympathize with why he was killed, not that he actually was. Vito, much like 95% of the characters on this series, was a scumbag. He had killed an innocent bystander in just the episode beforehand. His death wasn’t tragic in that it took place, but rather because of the intolerance that drove it.

There it is. Our highly opinionated and subjective list. If you apply twelve points for the best season and one point for the worst, then divide the total by the number of seasons for each series, you get an average score of 7.2 for The Wire and The Sopranos clocks in at an even 6, which is much closer than it appears. If 6A of The Sopranos had switched places with season two of The Wire, David Chase’s series would have come out victorious. However, by our flawed, statistical measure, The Wire was the better overall series. Again, this is highly debatable and we welcome any opposing point of view, but just be sure that whatever your opinion is, assuming it isn’t identical to ours, is dead fucking wrong and you should be ashamed.

Back with links or something tomorrow.

For this episode, and for a lot of Weeds episodes, it’s hard to tell when the plot is developing and when we are just listening to another throwaway conversation, because everything pivotal moment seems to be delivered with the same methodic and partly annoyed tone that a conversation about birds shitting all over the place would be. So the story kind of happens with everyone just casually sitting around discussing a dog barking doorbell or a terminally sick grandmother while Nancy sips an iced latte and everyone looks to her for answers.

This isn’t to say the episode didn’t have its moments. We love the change of location to a coastal city somewhere along the Mexican border called Ren Mar, we’re going to assume it is just as fictional as Agrestic and Majestic were, but if someone wants to enlighten us otherwise it would be much appreciated. If nothing else, it should give us a couple new characters in addition to Albert Brooks as Judah and Andy’s father who hates Nancy.

This series needs Doug Wilson like The Sopranos needs Tony.

Then again, one concern related to the move is how in the hell are they going to transplant Doug, Isabelle and Dean into the picture for the long haul. They could end up doing some sort of networking from whatever is left of Majestic, in which Nancy is supplying drugs to Doug, Sanjay or Celia for the entire city/suburb. Either way, they just need to make sure Doug is getting his reps.

Speaking of the selling of drugs, why is Nancy still so determined to commit illegal activity and put her family, particularly her sons in harms way? Is she still really indebted to Guillermo for anything? Probably in the drug trade she is, but she is actively seeking him out and is fully prepared to carry drugs across the border for a violent Latino gang. We understand there is no show without this, but how and why should I sympathize with her if she seems to actively enjoy selling drugs, whereas before it was depicted as a means to an end? Listening to her get excited for early retirement by way of becoming a drug mule was painful. You’re a pawn not a kingpin, Nancy. Haven’t you ever watched The Wire? Oh, that’s right, no one involved with this show has.

Still, we’re anticipating to see where they take this show. All that really happened in terms of forward progress was that Nancy & Andy decided to stay at his grandmother’s with his dad while they think of a more suitable venture. That’s it. If you watched the entire three seasons that preceded this episode but missed last night’s for whatever reason, then congratulations! You are now all caught up. Oh, and while Celia is under heavy interrogation for drug cultivation and distribution, everyone else is pinning the blame on her while she tries to pin it on Nancy. See, sometimes it doesn’t pay to be a heartless bitch.

For the most part it’s absurd to even bother comparing the two. One focuses on internal and familial conflict, the other on social and institutional decay and corruption. I’ve always been in the camp that thought The Wire was better, simply for the wider range of characters, it broke more television formalities and as far as universal accomplishment, they did what The Sopranos did better than The Sopranos did what The Wire did. Or something.

In other words, I think they accomplished more on The Wire. But why not take this a step further? This madness hasn’t gone far enough, I say. Let’s rank all twelve (Yes, I am counting season six as 6A & 6B, because they are so different in style and tone and were separated by eight months) seasons of the two historic series’ and unveil which ultimately scores a higher average rating. According to me.

1) The Wire - Season Four

Best Episodes: Each on is as good as the next. Fucking impossible to discern one episode as better than the other.

Probably the greatest season of television ever made. Coming into it fans were probably a little skeptical, no more Stringer Bell, Avon’s locked up & McNulty’s on the straight and narrow because Dominic West needed the free time to shoot 300. Never the less, they captured so many facets of the city, including the eroding public education in urban areas, and illustrated how all of these violent characters we’ve actually come to sympathize with became what they became.

In the absence of an entire street gang (sans Bodie, whose arc this season was one of the more tragic and poetic things we’ve ever seen on film) Simon developed several up until now peripheral characters to give the street the chilling allure it always had and increased the danger it represented (namely Chris and Snoop, played amazingly by Felicia Pearson & some guys name I have to copy and paste: Gbenga Akinnagbe). In other words, we’ll never look at vacant houses the same.

2) The Sopranos - Season five

Best Episodes: “Unidentified Black Males”, “Long Term Parking”, “Irregular Around The Margins”, “Where’s Johnny?”

Your average casual Sopranos fan was generally a blood thirsty sycophant whose motives for watching the series week to week were simply to see who would take one in the head. After season three, we waited well over a year for season four and by the time it ended, the majority of fans longed for the days of plot and an emphasis on casual violence. Season five filled that void (the body count was the second highest of any of the thirteen episode seasons), and filled it quickly with numerous prison releases which included Tony Blundetto (Steve Buscemi) and Phil Leotardo (Frank Vincent, it was only a matter of time before he ended up on this series).

Of the seven seasons David Chase gave us, this was the best culmination of plot, humor, character development, themes and symbolism. Nowadays it gets tossed aside because so many people were displeased with seasons four and six (particularly the first half) that it is easier to say “the first three seasons were better” than to actually distinguish season five from the two surrounding it. But still, this was The Sopranos finest thirteen hours of execution.

One of many inappropriate encounters.

3) The Sopranos - Season 6B

Best Episodes: “Remember When”, “Kennedy and Heidi”, “Walk Like A Man”, “Made In America”

The final chapter ended a little more somberly than most of us wanted/expected. Instead of being treated to nine hours of gangland warfare (Sans “The Blue Comet”) we got Yeats poems and gambling addictions. But if it didn’t explore the depths of depravity and David Chase’s ultimately cynical outlook on humanity in a morbidly entertaining fashion. We had been entertained and provoked by this series for 77 episodes, but rarely were any of those episodes exceeded by what we were privy to in the final nine.

4) The Wire - Season One

Best Episodes: “The Buys”, “Cleaning Up”, “Lessons”, “Sentencing”

This is the season of television kind of changed our outlook on many things — including how television could and should be made — so in that respect it could head this list. But there were still a few stylistic glitches that David Simon had to work out, but this is possibly the closest to first place any fourth place finisher has ever been for anything. It was baffling at first, and you had to almost train yourself to watch it, but the unparalleled parallelism, succinct yet thorough character introduction and convincing case against the war on drugs puts The Wire’s freshman effort in a comfortable fourth.

5) The Wire - Season Three

Best Episodes: “Dead Soldiers”, “Moral Midgetry”, “Middle Ground”, “Straight and True”

This is where it gets tricky. Simply because putting any of these seasons lower than five seems unjust in a way. I mean, who’s to separate the firs season of The Sopranos from the second season of The Wire? On what basis to I justify putting one in front of the other?

Essentially, we’re putting the Hamsterdam season in the five spot simply for the way it ended what they thought might be a series finale but left enough room for a new run, which must have been daunting. Oh, and the concept of Hamsterdam as it related to the drug game and our ineffectiveness to slow it down (there was a war going on while Hamsterdam was in place), plus the overwhelming yet subtle theme of reform and the allegory for the war in Iraq, really solidified this as a premiere season of television.

6) The Sopranos - Season one

Best Episodes: “Boca”, “College”, “The Legend of Tennessee Moltisanti”, “I Dream of Jeannie Cusamano”

Not as confusing as the first season or pilot of The Wire, in fact it is in several ways similar to a standard mob piece. But the compounding of family life with thug life with therapy and the intersecting and contradicting nature of the three turned Tony Soprano into one of the more complicated and despicable and relatable television characters ever created. Season one of The Sopranos is probably as much a comedy as it is a drama, when you watch it now it seems almost cartoonish when compared to more recent seasons. But even then, this series was so meticulous with its writing that you could see the direction it was heading in (i.e. all these people are really fucked in the head).

We’ll come back with the second half on Wednesday. Weeds recap tomorrow.