6 ways The Sopranos changed TV

On the 20th anniversary of The Sopranos’ premiere, the impact of the groundbreaking HBO drama has never been more apparent.

Upon its premiere on Jan. 10, 1999, The Sopranos spared no time taking pop culture by storm. Over the following six seasons, HBO delivered something that was completely different from anything that had been seen before. David Chase’s story about the unraveling of a mafia man, his crisis of identity, and dysfunctional family unit connected with viewers in a way no series had done previously.

From its risky, humble beginnings to the game-changing phenomenon it became, it’s evident that HBO’s groundbreaking program made a lasting impression on the entertainment world. And to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the show’s premiere, we’re here to explore the six ways The Sopranos changed television forever.

1. It pioneered cinematic TV

Before The Sopranos, there was a definite chasm between entertainment on the big and small screens. Heck, there was a time not that long ago when movie actors wouldn’t dare appear on a TV show. Of course, in the late ’90s, that began to change when heavy-hitters like Brad Pitt made cameos in hit sitcoms like Friends.

When The Sopranos aired, among the many details that stood out about the series was the show’s ensemble cast of mostly unknown movie actors. Up until that point, James Gandolfini (Tony) was known simply as a character actor whose biggest role was as a frightening mob hitman named Virgil in True Romance. Aside from thinking outside the box, and bringing movie actors to the small screen to make up the show’s gritty world, creator David Chase — who, according to Vanity Fair, had always wanted to graduate from the slums of TV to movies — brought a cinematic flair to the series, and thusly, to HBO.

From the production equipment and crew to the way in which the show was shot, The Sopranos acted like TV’s first 13-hour movie — playing out one hour at a time, every week.  Before the 13-episode format became the norm for cable TV, HBO set the precedent with its landmark series. And, it’s only fitting, The Sopranos was the first ever TV show to be screened at New York’s Museum of Modern Art.

2. It upgraded long-form narrative

Phrases like peak TV, prestige television and TV’s Second Golden Age have been thrown around a lot over the past decade. And while it’s been 20 years since The Sopranos first premiered to HBO, many acknowledge the series as the watershed moment that changed the way stories are told on the small screen.

It’s worth remembering that television was born from radio and that medium focused more on consumerism and quick short-form stories. For the longest time, the only long-form narrative viewers regularly saw on the small screen was in the soap opera world. When it came to prime time entertainment, audiences regularly tuned in to the crime/comedy/monster-of-the-week shows that they could count on.

The Sopranos helped wake America up and took us well out of our comfort zones. Suddenly, audiences were treated to a cinematic story on TV that played out in an intricately layered manner each and every week. Everyone was flawed, main characters died and the production value was above and beyond anything on the lineup of channels at that time. It was engaging, visceral and dramatic — and with the new millennium right around the corner, HBO’s mafia drama was suddenly pushing other networks to take notice of the coming culture shift.

3. It introduced the antihero

Before Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis) and Walter White (Bryan Cranston) walked the lines between good and evil — on FX’s The Shield and AMC’s Breaking Bad, respectively — Tony Soprano made being bad on TV oh so good.

The concept of a flawed lead in a prestige drama is old hat by today’s standards but back when The Sopranos first hit the air, audiences were left with their jaws on the proverbial floor. Up until that point, television never crossed these types of ethical lines with its characters. The heroes and villains all stayed in their lanes. HBO changed all of that.

Viewers were suddenly presented with well-rounded characters that seemed way more human than TV should allow. These were flawed characters, existing everywhere on the spectrum between good and evil, and the layered development of Carmela (Edie Falco), Paulie (Tony Sirico), Junior (Dominic Chianese) and the rest drew the audience in and kept them hooked.

This was certainly a story centered on a mafia family and their sordid criminal activities, but The Sopranos was so much more and with Tony as the antihero foundation of the whole thing, a new age of TV storytelling was born.

4. It took mental illness seriously

It’s unfortunate that 20 years after The Sopranos made its premiere, that there’s still a huge stigma surrounding mental illness in this country. That said, the mafia drama pushed the conversation forward in a major way. Sure, it drew comparisons to the Billy Crystal/Robert DeNiro comedy Analyze This, but Tony Soprano’s issue’s with anxiety and depression were no laughing matter.

Yes, this is a mafia TV show. But under the surface, what viewers saw play out for six seasons was the tale of a struggling father and husband fighting to maintain his relevancy amid both his professional and personal lives while the cracks in his mental fortitude only grew.

In watching this male mafia stereotype crumble before our eyes, only to explore his compounded faults with his psychiatrist, Jennifer Melfi (Lorraine Bracco), viewers everywhere were not only able to relate to the character on a human level — they were becoming involved in the real conversation about mental illness which played out in a starkly honest fashion.

5. It put HBO on the map

Drawing inspiration from movie classics like The Godfather and Goodfellas, along with a bit of his own Italian family life experience, David Chase made the mafia a small screen affair with The Sopranos. Looking back on this now, the series feels like a no-brainer, but at the time, literally every network he brought his idea to turned the series down as it was seen as too dark, too violent and way too risky.

HBO decided to give it a shot. The premium cabler was mostly known for their lineup of boxing events and tentpole movies, but in the couple years leading up to The Sopranos‘ premiere, the channel had started dipping its toes in the originally scripted arena.

Prison drama Oz hit the network in July of 1997, and while the show had an ensemble cast and explored similar antihero themes of morality and survival, the program remained under most people’s radars. Then in the summer of ’98, Sex and the City premiered. The Darren Star-created series has since found its own place in popular culture, but the show had a rocky start.

HBO was obviously looking for a hit, and six months after Carrie Bradshaw and the gang started sharing their deepest desires with viewers everywhere, The Sopranos premiered — and took off like a rocket. The risky mafia program that David Chase built was an immediate hit.

In its first few weeks, people everywhere were talking about the show. It was being parodied on Saturday Night Live, unheard of for a freshman series. What made this even more incredible was the sheer fact that HBO was a premium cable channel — and still, the word of mouth and buzz behind the show, which The New Yorker called “the richest achievement in television history,” had people clamoring to subscribe.

The Sopranos was the first ever cable drama to receive an Emmy nomination — 16 nods, to be exact. That was more than any other program that year. This groundbreaking achievement came in the series’ first season, too. HBO was suddenly in a huge growth period, according to The Washington Post, who reported in 1999 that network execs believed “The Sopranos may have attracted as many new subscribers to the service as any other single HBO program.”

6. It changed how we watch TV

The Sopranos was also ahead of the curve in the realm of programming strategy. With large numbers of new subscribers clamoring to the network just to watch the series, the TV industry was on the verge of a big change. As with anything new, change takes time to catch on — it was almost another 10 years before Mad Men and Breaking Bad ushered in this new golden age of television we’re still in the midst of. With The Sopranos‘ success, HBO began altering its business model and soon greenlit other cinematic dramas like The Wire and Six Feet Under leading the way to Boardwalk Empire, Westworld and even Game of Thrones.

But another way it transformed how we watch television is through the supply-and-demand model it stumbled across, as hordes of new viewers signed up for the service just to watch this one show. You could easily draw a straight line from The Sopranos‘ inception to the launch of Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, and of course, HBO GO and HBO Now.

We’re not saying that if The Sopranos never existed, these platforms wouldn’t have eventually launched anyway. But David Chase’s series is the game changer that nudged the programming evolution along. Not only did it usher in a new age of cutting-edge entertainment — it transformed the way we get our content.

You can watch all episodes of The Sopranos Series on HBO Go or HBO NOW.