I've gone through close to 500 emails in the past three days and responded to most of them. A small selection of them made it to the Feedback pages and those pages do represent most of what was written in all of the email.

If you're a regular at this site then you know I've said this many times before: I realize that with an estimated 10 million weekly viewers that there is going to be a very wide rage of reaction, opinions, thoughts and feelings about the show. That's only normal. We're not robots programmed to think and react the same way. If you don't like a particular episode or the entire show.. well fine. Noone is asking you to and probably noone even cares if you do or not. You're entitled to your own opinions just as everyone else is.

But........

The thing that really kills me is the people (and there were quite a few) who said they didn't like the episode because the first 40 minutes was wasted on the dream scenes.

The best reaction I have to that criticism is a line from the golden days of Saturday Night Live:

Jane.... you ignorant slut.....

Don't you realize that the Dream Scene WAS the show? It was the entire foundation this episode was built upon. The Sporanos if you remember is a show which is supposed to give us a glimpse of the day to day life of a modern day crime boss trying to balance his home and family life with the only other life he knows.... organized crime. He was raised in that atmosphere and he's carrying on the tradition into the 2000's. This is NOT the 1950's or 1960' and the years of The Godfather. Times have changed and we're seeing Tony live though those changes.

While I'm not a fan of Dream Scenes, this one was brilliant. Most of the metaphors and symbolisms haven't even been brought out yet. People are still speculating. Read some of the entries in the Feedback pages and you'll see some very good analysis and interpretation.

Probably the stupidest comment I received in all of the emails was something to effect of : "This show was so poorly done... I guess I'll go out and rent Goodfellas again to see a real mobster movie".

Again... You ignorant slut...

Why do you want The Sopranos to be like Goodfellas, like The Godfather and like every other gangster movie ever made or the way you think it should be made? The Sopranos is NOT supposed to be some cheap imitation or rip-off of another mafia type movie. One of the reasons The Sopranos is so popular is that it is different. It's supposed to be different you moron! You should be happy that you're able to watch a show like this rather than complaining that it's not like Goodfellas. What else on television even remotely resembles this show? Nothing. Compare it to other mafia type movies? If you add up the time for all three Godfather movies what do you get?.... about eight or nine hours of film? Well so far The Sopranos has finished 26 hours and we're guaranteed another 26 hours with David Chase. That's 72 hours. You think Tony isn't going to dream in those 72 hours?

And guess what? Goodfellas and other movies of that type never change. You watch them one, twice or a hundred times, it's always going to be the same and end the same. The Sopranos is an ongoing drama where new characters, situations and events are going to happen all the time. You don't know from one week to the next what will happen. And as far as new characters.... they introduced Furio and Richie this season... This is an ongoing and dymanic show and again, you should be happy you have the oppurtunity to watch some like this, especially if you're interested in mob films to begin with.

No one cares if you don't like an episode or the series but don't bash it because it's not like Goodfellas.

It's inevitable that when you either like or dislike a show that you're going to pick it apart piece by piece..... Janices' face is too big... Meadows' ass is too fat..... the camera angles are wrong and so on. That's actually part of the fun and enjoyment of it all. Quite a few ladies have written that they think Tony looks sexy when he's in his underwear. Could you ever say that while watching The Godfather? Of course not, because this is supposed to be about the daily life and times. The Godfather was an epic drama of an entire lifetime of events and situations put together in a three hour movie. The Sopranos is not a three hour movie. It is an on going drama series. Call it what you will; even a glorified soap opera if you like.

Ok, so we see Tony throwing up. We hear him in the bathroom and AJ walking by and saying "Who's letting those big ones rip"? That's part of the charm of the show.

The Sopranos is very complex to describe. It is a blend of black comedy, symbolisms, psychology and downright brutality. This is the same show where you see very tender or funny moments and then you see Richie getting cut up in a meat grinder. It can be an emotional roller coaster. But you know what? It always keeps you coming back for more.

If you only look at the details and analyze it to death and find fault then you're going to miss the big picture. And if you do that, you're missing the whole point of this show. You'll miss sublet things. You'll miss things like that the season ended the way it started... with a montage of events making Tony's life what it is. Who his friends are, his family situation to mention a few.

The saddest thing is that we have to wait until March of 2001 for the next season. I guess that $10 million dollar contract that David Chase recently signed to stay on two more years as executive producer wasn't enough to make him make more episodes or not as long of a gap between season. David.... David... where are you when we need you?