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The Sopranos - The Complete First Four Seasons
List Price: $399.72Our Price: $359.99 You Save: $39.73 (10%)Prices subject to change.
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Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Warner Brothers
EAN: 0026359885624
Format: Box set, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Item Dimensions: 100
Label: Hbo Home Video
Languages: English (Original Language),
Manufacturer: Hbo Home Video
MPN: 98856
Number Of Items: 4
Publisher: Hbo Home Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: October 28, 2003
Running Time: 2956 minutes
Studio: Hbo Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: January 10, 1999
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Editorial Review:
The first four seasons of Tony Soprano trying to keep his head straight while straightening out his blood family and his bloody family.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 026359885624 Manufacturer No: 98856
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.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - MY FAVORITE TELEVISION SHOW
This is one of the few shows worth my time. I absolutely love it. Its been consistent since day one. Im anxious to see how it all ends.
Rating: - Big Bulk Discount!!
How can it be that by buying seasons 1+2+3+4 separately you end up saving 100 bucks? Don't buy this package, do the math and SAVE!
Rating: - best series ever made, dan from london
what can i say. 1st off i want to thank u americans for making possibly the greatest tv show to ever hit the screen. i have been addicted to this masterpiece from day 1 and with the 5th series just finished over here. i cant wait to series 6 the final series supposedly. i have all series on dvd boxset and must of watched it over and over 3 times atleast. i wont bother yabbing on about what its about coz everyone knows. i just say that my best episodes are pine barrens series 3, the episode when pussy ... Read More
Rating: - Badfellas!
Great story content, acting, directing, and writing. One of the best shows out there with a cinematic effect.
Rating:  - Good show that was Great
obviously Buy these Sets for each season as to buying all together.but the main thing is what is stronger&what isn't.the first two years this show was on Point.but season was pretty good while season four was so-so&this past year was better than last year but a step off from the Peak years of season 1&2.still David Chase gets dap for exploring so many situations with the show.next year season 6 is the last one&truth be told I feel they went one year to many on a hold.but the show is still a Good show&you ... Read More
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