The Sopranos
Best: Season 1 Unrated, 11 hrs., 20 mins., 1999-2000 (Warner) Ranking the best and worst seasons of The Sopranos is something of a fool's errand: Anyone who truly enjoys the show's operatic dimensions, psychological depth, and vast, suspension-bridge character arcs knows it's unfair to trumpet the go-go Shakespearean intrigues of season 1 (most notably Tony's deadly oedipal entanglements with murderous matriarch Livia) over the simmering decline-and-fall of recent installments. That said: Season 1 is a stand-alone masterpiece, an effortlessly novel piece of television literature (yes, literature) that plants its bloody flag right in the heart of American dread.
WORST: Season 4 Unrated, 13 hrs., 20 mins., 2002-03 (Warner) Again, ''worst'' seems like the wrong word, and ''weakest'' isn't much better. Season 4 was a rainy-day meditation on the progress of everyday evil, and it got us where we needed to go: the massive, magnificent meltdown/showdown between Tony and Carmela. But for a while, it felt like creator David Chase and Co. were simply marking time. Exhibit A: the infamous ''Christopher,'' where Columbus Day festivities pitted poorly written Native Americans against poorly written Italian Americans against flummoxed, foot-tapping viewers.
