Monday, April 03, 2006

Over the past few years I've been hearing a lot of: could the characters in this or that show be deeper, like those wonderful Sopranos characters. Could there be intertwining story lines, like on Sopranos. Etc.

Of course the show is brilliantly written. And characters can always be deeper and richer. Of course.

But the thing execs keep forgetting, is that Sopranos is an actual hour show. It airs on HBO, without commercials. Everyone else's hour show is really forty minutes. Yes, there's been the odd 43 or 47 minute Sopranos ep. But they are usually 50 minutes plus. Often they run 58, 59 minutes.

Can't do that on network. Gotta show the commercials.

There is no doubt Sopranos is a great show. But it also has 20%-50% more time per episode than everyone else. Give me, or anyone else, 10 or 20 more minutes, and we'll throw in some neat character scenes and a D and an E story, too.

(Not to mention, boy: to be able to write and cut the show as long or short as you like...)

12:33 AM

4 Comments:

I don't know Alex... The Sopranos may have the full hour to tell the story, but at the end of the day, a Sopranos season only runs to 13 episodes.

I keep thinking of NYPD Blue and Homicide. Both were network shows weren't they? (I'm from th UK so I'm trying to remember if there were) both weere 45-50 minutes long and they both seemed to have the complexity and originality that we see in the Sopranos. I wonder is it something to do with emotional investment in the characters. Or if not that, then a solid point of view and a personal take/vision on the world. NYPD had Milch. Homicide had Fontana.

I love Lost, but there is no way I have the same emotional investment in the characters lives as I did on the other shows. As for the personal take on the world, I feel that will only be made apparent in hind sight when the series wraps up.

Are there other big network shows with a personal take on the world? Keep in mind that here in the UK they haven't shown the second season of Lost yet and as for Grays Anatomy...?


Great site though. Always informative and though provolking


Terry

By  writerman68, at 5:06 AM  

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By  writerman68, at 5:14 AM  

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By  writerman68, at 5:22 AM  

(to paraphrase the ever-quotable Dubya), i offer two words:

inter-nets.

By  carlito, at 9:13 PM  

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