Salute!

When The Sopranos debuted back in 1999, it was unlike anything else on television. Other shows featured sex, violence, and adult storylines, but The Sopranos had a slickness to it that made it feel more cutting edge. Shows like NYPD Blue and LA Law preceded The Sopranos, but the both had a pervasive Bochco-grittiness that served as a reminder that they went places Hill Street Blues had gone before. Since then shows like The Shield, Deadwood, and 24 have arrived with morally ambiguous characters, ultraviolence, and a healthy helping of nudity, and suddenly The Sopranos doesn't feel as fresh anymore.

So does that make The Sopranos the greatest drama of all time? How about Hill Street Blues, for its groundbreaking adult content? Or my favorite, The Shield, for continuing to build on these templates? This is the same kind of problem you have comparing athletes across different eras: evolution. Current all time home run leader Hank Aaron played at 6'0" 180 lbs, the same height and weight listed for light hitting Red Sox outfielder Coco Crisp. Twenty years ago there were only 27 players in the NFL weighing 300 lb or more. Now there are hundreds. Education about nutrition, weight training, and sports medicine has made athletes bigger, stronger, and faster, making it difficult to translate dodging tacklers or crushing homers 40 years to today.

I'm for progress. I get more enjoyment from watching Batman Begins than Citizen Kane, I've watched enough tape to be confident that Shaquille O'Neal would dominate Bill Russell or Wilt Chamberlain, and I watch syndicated episodes of Seinfeld while I've never seen and episode of All in the Family beginning to end. So for me the bloom has been off the rose for The Sopranos for some time. But its influence is unquestioned, and it's easy to forget what it once was.