Always keen to be right at the cultural cutting edge, I started watching the Sopranos last night. Season 1, episode 1. It's very good, isn't it? You can quote me on that, should the series need promoting.
I have of course seen the Sopranos before, but never with any success. The problem is that I have never been able to tell any of the characters apart. It's like when white people say that all black people look the same, I think that all Italian Americans look the same, especially the middle aged men. I think it's because they all have the same hair colour. It always amazes me when I ask someone for a description of a person, and they say "oh, such and such an age, yea tall, kind of skinny." (Well that would be a particularly stupid thing to say, but you know what I mean.) And I'm like: Hair you fool! HAIR! Anyway, in the past, when I have on a sporadic basis watched an episode of the Sopranos, I just got a headache thinking hang on, isn't he the guy who - no, that's the one that - wait, didn't he get whacked? (Not to mention trying to remember whether Dr Melfi is played by Lorraine Bracco or Edie Falco, but that's a private hell of my own making.) How am I supposed to tell? I'm just looking at the hair and the eyebrows.
(Incidentally, on the subject of white people thinking all black people look the same, my sister lived for a while on a Caribbean island with very few white people, and none of the black people there could tell the white people apart. It's a familiarity thing I think, you just don't know what differentials to look for. I obviously haven't met enough Italian Americans to guide me through this difficult time.)
Anyway, the makers of the Sopranos were kind enough to pepper the first episode with several mentions of the characters' first names, so that you can start getting a grip of who is who and maybe start noticing other helpful determinants to keep them apart in your mind. Determinants like Christopher being the most repellant character I have ever encountered in any television show, ever. It's quite impressive: I have watched The Office.
So yes, as I said, episode one, very good. I'll let you know what I think of the finale in about, oh, eight years.
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