From an Article by Joyce Millman published in Entertainment

HBO's wily new series "The Sopranos" depicts the midlifeanxieties of a devoted husband, father and Family man.

HBO's terrific new drama series "The Sopranos" is about a middle-agedNew Jersey mobster who starts seeing a shrink after suffering from acuteanxiety attacks. I know, it sounds like a "Saturday Night Live" skit.Actually, it was a "Saturday Night Live" skit, a long time ago,with a jowly John Belushi playing Don Corleone in group therapy ("Vito,you're blocking again"). Not that "The Sopranos" isn't meant to befunny -- it is, and darkly, morbidly, devilishly so. But the humorousaspects of a wiseguy in therapy in no way dilute or overshadow the story'sdramatic integrity. "The Sopranos" convinces you thatit's no more unusual for a made man to suffer from midlife depression, jobburnout and stress than it is for any other late '90s husband/father/middlemanager. Because, except for his tendency to maim and kill businessassociates, the paunchy, put-upon Tony Soprano is just like anyother late '90s husband/father/middle manager. Family life is a lot morecomplicated than it used to be, you know. Both kinds of familylife.

The first episode of "The Sopranos" (which aired Sunday and repeats 10 p.m. Monday and 11 p.m. Tuesday) opens with Tony (the bearish JamesGandolfini in an immensely charming performance) sitting uncomfortably inthe office of psychiatrist Jennifer Melfi (Lorraine Bracco). He wasreferred to her by his family doctor after he collapsed at a barbecue onhis son's 13th birthday. "Nowadays people go to shrinks andcounselors ... What ever happened to Gary Cooper? The strong silent type?"grumbles Tony. But when the scrupulously professional Dr. Melfi assures himthat their conversations fall under patient-doctor privilege, he begins toopen up -- leaving out incriminating details, of course -- and the storymoves out of the psychiatrist's office and into Tony's headache-filled,upper-middle-class, suburban baby boomer existence.

On the home front, Tony's marriage is so-so; his flinty, wannabesociety matron wife Carmela (Edie Falco) knows he has mistresses and isn'tafraid to bust his cannolis over it. He's got two sullen kids: daughterMeadow (Jamie Lynn Sigler), a snotty high school senior who can't wait togo to college as far away from Tony and Carmela as possible, and sonAnthony Jr. (Robert Iler), a chubby Nintendo-glazed donut who could doubleas the live-action version of Bobby Hill. Tony's widowed, elderly mother, Livia (Nancy Marchand), is stubborn and impossible to please; she'sincreasingly unable to live alone, but she lays on the guilt whenever Tonytalks about moving her to a retirement community. (Marchand, who usuallyplays elegant patrician ladies like Mrs. Pynchon from "Lou Grant," is almostunrecognizable here in her housecoat and limp hair; she has a grand timeplaying a tough old broad with frightened eyes.)

Tony's "waste management" business is also giving him grief. His latefather's older brother, the whimsically named Uncle Junior (DominicChianese), is a bitter fool who resents Tony's rise within the family; likethe old dons in "The Godfather," he demands reparations (or worse) for theslightest offense. There's a power vacuum at the top of the Jersey mob --the current capo is serving a life term in the federal pen and theacting boss, Tony's childhood friend, is dying of cancer at 45. Tony hashis hands full keeping Uncle Junior from making a power grab while makingsure the young stallions in his own crew don't do anything stupid. "I'm notgetting any satisfaction from my work," he tells Dr. Melfi. "Lately, I'vebeen feeling that I came in at the end, the best is over." And no wonder --tenacious government enforcement of the RICO statutes has eaten intoprofits, as well as seriously undermined loyalty. "Guys today have no roomfor the penal experience," Tony laments. "Everybody turns governmentwitness."

But the biggest reason he has swallowed his pride and come to see her,Tony tells the doc, is that he's been feeling depressed ever since thefamily of ducks that was nesting in his swimming pool flew away. He may nothave been to college, but he's smart enough to know that the ducks meansomething. Pleased with their progress after one session, Dr. Melfiprescribes Prozac and tells him to come back next week.

"The Sopranos" is HBO's best original series since "The Larry SandersShow" and the only to-die-for new drama on any network this season. Thedialogue is sharp and sly, the characters are richly drawn, the actorsthrow off sparks at every turn and the story takes two well-trod genres,the family drama and the Family drama, into unpredictable terrain.Creator-writer David Chase was a co-executive producer and writer for"Northern Exposure" and "I'll Fly Away," but "The Sopranos" reminds me of alesser-known show of his called "Almost Grown." That audaciously structured-- and, of course, short-lived -- 1988 CBS drama followed a couple fromcourtship in the '60s to parenthood and divorce in the '80s, movingbackwards and forwards in time on the cue of period pop songs.

There's a similar Proustian feel to "The Sopranos," although itsnarrative is more straightforward. Tony and his buddies are besieged by asense of dislocation, of time slipping away, of their own impendingirrelevance, of the new rules eclipsing the old. There's an aching -- andachingly funny -- scene in the second episode where an old-timer namedPauly Walnuts goes into a Starbucks for the first time and is floored bythe realization that somebody has made millions pimping Italian culture tothe masses. "How did we miss out on this?" he cries. "Espresso, cappuccino-- we fucking invented this shit!"

But "The Sopranos" gets most of its juice from the way Tony digs in andfights to regain control of his life by making the new rules work for him.Tony is at his wits' end trying to deal with his mother and Uncle Junioruntil Dr. Melfi gives him a self-help book on "strategies for coping withelder family." From the book, Tony hits upon the perfect way to bothplacate Uncle Junior and solidify his own claim to the vacancy at the topof the family. "I get a lot of good ideas here," Tony tells Dr. Melfi, witha twinkle in his eye. Even though Tony does some vicious things, he worksso hard to do right by his families that you gotta love him. He's slowlymanaging to achieve the kind of balance between work and home, and betweenthe old world and the new, that his hero, Michael Corleone, never could.

Michael and the other Corleones are mentioned so often in "TheSopranos," they seem like cast members. And why not? Tony and his pals wereas bewitched as the rest of us by "The Godfather" saga, with its fragrantred sauce tales of honor and loyalty and honest dishonesty (as opposed tothe sneakier forms of murder and thievery preferred by legit businessmenand politicians). Chase mischievously embroiders "The Sopranos" with visualand verbal Coppola-isms. The series is shot in a dark, rich "Godfather"palette; characters speak of "going to the mattresses" and being shotthrough the eye in "a Moe Green special." One Soprano crew member (playedby former E Street Band guitarist Steve Van Zandt, in his acting debut) haseven turned an extremely passing resemblance to Al Pacino into apersonality; he's forever curling down the corners of his mouth andlaunching into the "They keep pulling me back in!" speech from "GodfatherIII."

Tony and his pals measure themselves as men against these Mafia movieheroes, with one major difference: Nobody in "The Sopranos" is talkingabout getting out or going legit. As far as they're concerned, theyare legit. Nowhere in the first few episodes does Tony utter anyplans for Anthony Jr.'s future; unlike Don Vito and his regret over Michaelbeing sucked into the fray, it probably wouldn't shame Tony at all if hiskid goes into "waste management." And at the end of the fourth episode,when the kid finally realizes what his father does for a living, AnthonyJr.'s reaction is enigmatic. You get the sense that future father-sonfights will not be over whether little Anthony goes into the familybusiness, but whether he'll appreciate his birthright once he does. Thebiggest threat to Tony's family and his world comes not from the JusticeDepartment, suggests Chase, but from within, from the next generation. Andthat's wittily conveyed in the younger Soprano crew members' ignorance oftheir own history.

"Louis Brasi sleeps with the fishes!" declares Tony's hot-headed,pea-brained nephew Christopher Moltisanti (Michael Imperioli) afterimpulsively sending a rival a message. "Luca! Luca Brasi!" anelder corrects him, with disgust. Jeez -- kids these days.

But Christopher's funniest, most telling faux pas comes when he's waiting in line outside a trendy New Yorknightclub and Martin Scorsese steps out of a limo. Christopher pumps hisfist in the air and shouts to the director of "Mean Streets" and "GoodFellas," "'Kundun'! I liked it!" and you don't have to be a wiseguy -- oreven Italian -- to wince. Tony has every right to fear that his world iscoming to an end.