What Am I Missing?

Articles

What Am I Missing?

By Meri Ulrich
July 11, 2007

Even though I pay my cable company for some premium channels like HBO and Showtime, I have never bothered to watch the "big" shows like "The Sopranos", "Sex In The City" or "Six Feet Under".

Because I live in a climate where it's unwise to go outside during the summer unless you absolutely have to I stay indoors and keep as cool as possible. This results in a lot of television watching which means that eventually I run out of shows to watch that aren't repeats of repeats. I think that I know all of the dialogue spoken by the principal characters on "CSI" and "Law and Order". not to mention a dozen or so other long running series programs that have been sold to various channels that my cable company airs each day.

This past couple of weeks have been extremely hot where I live so I ran out of shows to watch and decided to check out what the fuss was about regarding the big shows from HBO, etc.

I tried one episode of "Sex In the City" and decided that NO ONE acts like those women. NO ONE that I have ever known or ever heard of has a life remotely resembling the lives of Carrie Bradshaw and friends. Scratch off that show.

I then tried "Six Feet Under" and was horrified. Needless to say I switched channels before the show was half over. Death is hard enough for me to deal with without the weirdness depicted on that show.

Then came the grand-daddy of all cable originated hit shows..."The Sopranos". Much to my dismay Tony Soprano sounded like a munchkin. I should explain that I grew up around some individuals who you could call....wise guys. They were the real deal and NONE of them sounded like Tony Soprano. I could easily buy Marlon Brando's "Godfather" voice and attitude because he actually reminded me of some of the people I grew up with. I felt a real kinship to the characters in Mario Puzo's novels and in the films that followed based on those novels.

When it came to Tony, I felt like I was watching a mafia related trip to Oz. He's a scary looking guy; macho looking and intimidatingly large so where did that weird munchkin voice come from? I began to wonder if somewhere during the original airing of that show someone had performed a certain surgery on poor Tony.....somewhere south of the belt-line. Why would he sound like someone that Dorothy had encountered when she found herself in Munchkin Land?

I felt it only fair to Tony to ask my son who is a faithful fan of "The Sopranos" if he thought that Tony had a weird sounding voice and needless to say I got an earful about how wrong I was and how manly Tony was (and still is if you are watching those re-runs). How dare I denigrate the "Man" himself? Obviously to many, Tony Soprano is an icon and a true representative of all that is gangster (of the Italian variety, that is).

To me, he sounded like a wimp and if I ran into him at his favorite restaurant I wouldn't be scared at all. I would have to hold myself back from laughing at his silly voice. He certainly didn't remind me of some Capitano di tutti i Capitani like the ones in the "Godfather" movies.

I'll take a good old re-run of "Will & Grace" or "Frasier" any day over those highly hyped but rather silly shows that I have sampled recently. Sure, I've never met a character quite as flamboyant as Jack McFarlane or anyone as prissy and posh as Frasier and Nile Crane, but at least they were amusing and the portrayal of their characters as written was perfectly performed; their timing flawless.

Sorry, Tony, fate un disservice a tutti i gangsters.

P.S.

All of you "Soprano" fans hold your fire...it's only one person's opinion!!

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About the author: Meri has a Medical/Legal background and is a former forensic researcher specializing in psychological profiling.

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