This COULD be the best episode
1Maybe not, there are so many of the 86 that can be thrown into the debate, but at the VERY LEAST it's THE episode that 'announced' to those who were watching at the time that something truly special was coming forth.
A very solid point you make about episode 1's opening sequence. It definitely was different than anything going on on network TV at the time. As I'm sure you know, if the pilot would have never been accepted by HBO (or ANYone), Chase would have added a half an hour more of dialogue and made it into a an actual movie which would have made plenty of sense. The first time I ever watched Season 1 my attention was already caught by the first 2 eps but it was the closing sequence of 'Anger, Denial, Acceptance' which served as the convincer, and after having just inhaled all 13 eps of Season 1 this past week (had it on loan for quite sometime) and doing my very best to watch it with fresh eyes and a fresh head (pretending to see it for the first time ever and that it's early-1999) it still comes back to me thinking that the first 2 episodes were more so a recent example of HBO already establishing itself as a groundbreaker in television with Sopranos being the newest example of this; 'Anger, Denial, Acceptance', however, immediately kicks-the-door-down/transcends it from 'one of' these special shows HBO's been recently putting out to THE VERY BEST of them all.FlyOnMelfisWall wrote:Glad to see your account working for you now, BFazio.
I agree that this was a fantastic episode. It certainly contained some memorable moments (Carmela and the index finger!) and an absolutely fabulous, quintessentially "Sopranos" ending sequence. Of course, to my mind, you could tell The Sopranos was going to be unlike anything ever before seen on TV in the first sequence of the pilot. We started with an indoor office scene with no exotic camera moves, no "action", and long silences between two characters that would frighten away virtually every network executive and a great many (mostly younger) people whose dramatic sensibilities have grown out of the era of high budget action features, video games, and MTV. God bless HBO for all eternity for providing Chase with an uncensored and fully supportive platform for his creative impulses.
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