Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #63366 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 2005-06-07
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 20
• Running time: 3736 minutes

Features

• The Complete First Season On January 10th, 1999, America was introduced to two families that would make history: The Soprano family headed by Tony Soprano, and The Soprano "family" headed by . Tony Soprano. ' 'Four Stars! The first gotta-watch, gotta love, Gotti-like TV series of 1999. Across the board it's an A-plus.' ' - The New York Post ' 'Achieves a fresh tone to

Amazon.com
The Sopranos, writer-producer-director David Chase's extraordinary television series, is nominally an urban gangster drama, but its true impact strikes closer to home, chronicling a dysfunctional, suburban American family in bold relief. And for protagonist Tony Soprano, there's the added complexity posed by heading twin families, his collegial mob clan and his own, nouveau riche brood. The series' brilliant first season is built around what Tony learns when, whipsawed between those two worlds, he finds himself plunged into depression and seeks psychotherapy--a gesture at odds with his midlevel capo's machismo, yet instantly recognizable as a modern emotional test. With analysis built into the very spine of the show's elaborate episodic structure, creator Chase and his formidable corps of directors, writers, and actors weave an unpredictable series of parallel and intersecting plot arcs that twist from tragedy to farce to social realism. While creating for a smaller screen, they enjoy a far larger canvas than a single movie would afford, and the results, like the very best episodic television, attain a richness and scope far closer to a novel than movies normally get.

Alternately seductive, exasperated, fearful, and murderous, James Gandolfini's Tony is utterly convincing even when executing brutal shifts between domestic comedy and dramatic violence. The first season's other life force is Livia Soprano, Tony's monstrous, meddlesome mother. As Livia, the late Nancy Marchand eclipses her long career of patrician performances to create an indelibly earthy, calculating matriarch who shakes up both families; Livia also serves as foil and rival to Tony's loyal, usually level-headed wife, Carmela (Edie Falco). Lorraine Bracco makes Tony's therapist, Dr. Melfi, a convincing confidante, by turns "professional," perceptive, and sexy; the duo's therapeutic relationship is also depicted with uncommon accuracy. Such grace notes only enrich what's not merely an aesthetic high point for commercial television, but an absorbing film masterwork that deepens with subsequent screenings.

In its second season, The Sopranos repeatedly defies formula to let the narrative turn as a direct consequence of the characters' behavior, letting everyone in this rogue's gallery of Mafiosi, friends, and family evolve and deepen. That gamble is most apparent in the rupture of the relationship that formed the spine of the first season, the tangled ties between Tony and Livia, whose betrayal makes Tony's estrangement a logical response. Filling that vacuum, however, is prodigal sister Janice (Aida Turturro), whose New Age flakiness never successfully conceals her underlying calculation and opportunism. Soprano's relationship with therapist Melfi also frays during early episodes, as she struggles with escalating doubts about her mobbed-up patient. At home, Tony contends with wife Carmela's ruthless ambitions on behalf of college-bound Meadow (Jamie Lynn Sigler), as well as son Anthony Jr.'s (Robert Iler) sullen adolescent flirtation with existentialism--the sort of touch that the show handles with a smart mix of sympathy and amusement.

In the brutal and controversial third season, The Sopranos justified its 11-month hiatus with some of its best, and most hotly debated, episodes. It continued to upend convention and defy audience expectations with a deliberately paced, calm-before-the-storm season opener that revolves around the FBI's attempts to bug the Soprano household, and a season finale that (for some) frustratingly leaves several plot lines unresolved. "Employee of the Month," in which Dr. Melfi is raped and considers whether to exact revenge by telling Tony of her attack, earned Emmys for its writers, and is perhaps Emmy nominee Lorraine Bracco's finest hour. Other story arcs concern the rise of the seriously unstable Ralph Cifaretto (Joe Pantoliano) and Tony's affair with "full-blown loop-de-loo" Gloria (Emmy nominee Annabella Sciorra). Plus, there is Tony's estrangement from daughter Meadow, his wayward delinquent son Anthony, Jr., Carmela's crisis of conscience, bad seed Jackie Jr., and the FBI--which, as the season ends, assigns an undercover agent to befriend an unwitting figure in the Soprano family's orbit.

Though for some the widely debated fourth season contained too much yakking instead of whacking, and an emphasis on domestic family over business Family, in most respects The Sopranos remains television's gold standard. The season garnered 13 Emmy nominations, and subsequent best actor and actress wins for James Gandolfini and Edie Falco as Tony and Carmela, whose estrangement provides the season with its most powerful drama, as well as a win for Joe Pantoliano's psychopath Ralph. Other narrative threads include Christopher's (Emmy nominee Michael Imperioli) descent into heroin addiction, Uncle Junior's (Dominic Chianese) trial, an unrequited and potentially fatal attraction between Carmela and Tony's driver Furio, and a rude joke about Johnny Sack's wife that has potentially fatal implications. Other indelible moments include Christopher's girlfriend Adriana's projectile reaction to discovering that her new best friend is an undercover FBI agent in the episode "No Show," Janice giving Ralph a shove out of their relationship in "Christopher," and the classic "Quasimodo/Nostradamus" exchange in the season-opener, which garnered HBO's highest ratings to date. Freed from the understandably high expectations for the fourth season, heightened by the 16-month hiatus, these episodes can be better appreciated on their own considerable merits. They are pivotal chapters in television's most novel saga.

From the moment a wayward bear lumbers into the Sopranos' yard in the fifth-season opener, it is clear that The Sopranos is in anything but a "stagmire." The series benefits from an infusion of new blood, the so-called "Class of 2004," imprisoned "family" members freshly released from jail. Most notable among these is Tony's cousin, Tony Blundetto (Steve Buscemi, who directed the pivotal season 3 episode "Pine Barrens"), who initially wants to go straight, but proves himself to be something of a "free agent," setting up a climactic stand-off between Tony and New York boss Johnny Sack. These 13 mostly riveting episodes unfold with a page-turning intensity with many rich subplots. Estranged couple Tony and Carmella (the incomparable James Gandolfini and Edie Falco) work toward a reconciliation (greased by Tony's purchase of a $600,000 piece of property for Carmela to develop). The Feds lean harder on an increasingly stressed-out and distraught Adriana to "snitch" with inevitable results. This season's hot-button episode is "The Test Dream," in which Tony is visited by some of the series' dear, and not-so-dearly, departed in a harrowing nightmare.

Customer Reviews

For the Price and not the Content!
I am assuming, since you are reading this review, you are familiar about Sopranos. This writeup is not meant to be a critique of the series (the series is absolutely brilliant), rather the wierd pricing strategy associated with this particular set.
I really do not understand this! How can the same group of people who have created one of the most amazing TV series of our times, can get their pricing strategy so wrong? It is possible to buy the five seasons separately a lot cheaper from Amamzon.com. One is supposed to get a premium for buying by the bulk and not pay a premium. If you are a fan of the series (who isn't) and still have successfully resisted the temptation to purchase the series (miracles still happen) then I strongly recommend immediate purchase of the five seasons separately. Do not buy them together and end up paying extra dollars, rather purchase the seasons separately, save some money and buy Friends (the TV series) or Casablanca with the balance or go out to dinner with your family or any thing else. Just please do not drop your hard earned money down the drain.

Far From Pulp Fiction
This is the best television we've seen, possibly ever. What's good about the Sopranos?

1. The writing. There has not been better writing for TV to my knowledge.

2. The viewpoint. We are made terribly uncomfortable by this series, because it holds a mirror up to our own desires (some cultural, some more deeply ingrained). It's a show about aspirations, materialism, power, family love, but ultimately the values distortion that occurs when we convince ourselves that we should put our love for people before values and principles. It's about people who either are or can be converted into slaves to their own desires, whether for drugs, sex, gambling or just love. The viewpoint deals deep and common emotions without sentimentality, which is mighty tricky.

3. A constant exploration of narcissism. If we are self-absorbed, we can be exploited by our vanity.

4. Tragedy's best basis is folly and coincidence.

5. A talented and effective leader always risks the loss of the very thing pursued: the genuine love of those led. When Tony is given evidence of that kind of love, he doubts and rejects it.

6. Consumerism, maybe even more than money, is the root of all evil. And we all are consumed by consumerism.

7. The effective depiction of family moments, created via extremely effective writing, direction and acting, will knock your socks off.

8. Psychology practice operating without morals or even ethics cannot save us from our own self-created torments.

Pulp Fiction is shocking, frank and violent, and so is this wonderful series. But The Sopranos presents so very, very much more than that.

Doesn't pull any punches!
I will never forget the opening scene of the very first episode of this magnificent show: Tony Soprano, the future boss of the North Jersey's underworld, sitting in the waiting room of a psychiatrist office, looking curiously at a statue of a naked woman. Dr Melfi opens the door and asks: "Mr Soprano?". Tony nods, walks into her office, has a seat, looks around the office and doesn't utter a single word, seemingly uncomfortable. He looks like he has no clue of what to say. He doesn't even seem to know why on earth he's there. After a while, he begins to tell the story of two ducks from Canada that migrated to New Jersey and made their home in the pool of the Soprano home. They soon mated and had several ducklings. Tony remembers the joy it was to have those ducks in his pool. They stayed there until the young were able to fly. And one day, while Tony was grilling food for his own children, the ducks suddenly flew away. This sad sight caused Tony to have a panic attack and pass out. "At first, it felt like ginger ale in my skull" - were his actual words.

Dr Melfi is curious about why these ducks seem to mean so much to Tony. He talks about the sorrow of watching them leave and begins to cry. Dr Melfi reflects on what she just heard, offers him a tissue, puts it together and deduces that when the ducks had babies in his pool, they became family to Tony. This is quite a breakthrough. Tony Soprano's greatest fear is that one day he might lose his family and end up being alone and isolated.

Although highly confused in the beginning of his journey, Tony has high hopes of finding a remedy to his panic attacks and his passing out. Yet, deep down inside, he knows his therapy goals are not to experience a change in lifestyle, but quite simply to ease the pain and guilt that overwhelm him. Every week, for an hour, he will seat there, in front of a therapist who will not call a spade a spade and who will insist that Tony's problem is a medical one. The psycho-nonsense offered by Dr Melfi is hardly a real cure. Therapy will lead to more therapy. Prozac will lead to more prozac. Yet it all seems very clear that Tony's life needs much more than psychotherapy, it needs, first and foremost, a judgement of what is right and what is clearly wrong; it needs confessing what he simply can not confess. In journeying through Tony's painful experiences, Dr Melfi can not offer him a true story of hope. She can not judge. She obviously knows too well what his patient's problem is. Instead, she choses to sit, diagnose and prescribe. "Are you still taking the lithium?" she asks. And Tony replies: "Lithium, prozac... When is this gonna end?"

Tony's main problem is not the FBI, or the rival mob families or the betrayal of a lifetime friend. His life tormenting arch-enemy is his own mother, Livia Soprano. In a show full of monsters, she is the biggest one. Livia Soprano is a woman incapable of experiencing love or joy. This neurotic, bitter, manipulative, domineering, overbearing, larger-than-life woman is the real boss, and she continues to run the show even when she's hidden away at the Green Grove retirement community. "I don't know, Im just a babbling idiot" - she says to her brother-in-law, Tony's uncle Junior, New Jersey's acting boss, who would not even dare to make any important decisions without Livia's consent. She sentences someone to death by simply shrugging her shoulders. Livia Soprano haunts almost all of Tony's sessions with Dr Melfi. He squirms at the mention of her name. His deepest desire is to feel loved and nurtured by his own mother, while she is constantly obsessed with infanticide and young mothers throwing their babies off the top of skyscrapers: "Babies are just like animals, they're no different from dogs" - she likes to repeat. This is a woman who wore her husband (Tony's father) down to a little nub, and he was one of the toughest guys in his neighbourhood. Tony can't even remember a single joyful experience with his mother. This is a woman who lives a life devoid of joy, love and friendship.

I have often caught myself thinking about why I love "The Sopranos" so much. This is a show about gangsters, but also about family relationships, friendship, loyalty, betrayal, God, faith, fear, loathing, lying, disgust, violence, joy, sorrow, depression, murder, infanticide, you name it. "The Sopranos" sheds light into very dark areas and it directs attention to the flawed state of men. You may not completely identify with most of the characters, but you know that what some of them do or say strikes deep into your heart and what or who you are. This show somehow shapes the way you view the world, or at least changes it. It paints an accurate picture of the reality and at the same time it destroys the illusion of our security and well being, and exposes the hypocrisy and vanity of men living in a certain place at a certain time. There are many gutwrenching scenes in this show which don't have to be explained at all. Some of them are really horrific, yet you always come back for more.

Like many, many people who seem to be in awe of this show, I love this murderous, lying, adulterous boss simply because he is real, raw, barenakedly exposed. Tony's a mobster, but he's a likeable guy. He has this raw magnetism, he's bigger than life. And I guess I, like many other people, I'm in awe of powerful men. No matter where their power may spring from. Just like Dr Melfi, who feels attracted to him like a moth to a flame. He kills people, cheats on his wife, has a terrible temper, consorts with strippers, worries about everything under the sun, and he feels really bad about the consequences of his acts. But Anthony Soprano is not a sociopath after all. In his own manner, he cares about his friends and family, and he suffers from self-doubt and panic attacks. He is human. He is a highly complex human being. He manages to remain a largely sympathetic figure because of his many personal foibles. He is a very successful guy at what he does, he's got the world by the you know what, and yet, he can't help feeling like a looser. He is a contradictory character, like so many other literature or movies characters are. His brutality is profoundingly disturbing, maybe even disgusting, and yet it erupts from what seems to be a normal social framework.

Like Tony and his ducks, we all have similar stories to tell and we are in constant search of somebody to tell them to. We all have our fears of maybe one day ending up alone and forgotten. And maybe that's the main reason why we all can't wait to see the next episode of the show. But just like Anthony Soprano, do most of us need a "professional" advice about painful personal childhood or adult experiences, or simply someone to talk to?

With a highly intelligent, extremely well-written story, sublime acting and excellent directing, this show simply represents the best that television has to offer. So far.