But for the sake of discussion...
1. While the whole show revolved around Tony, including his psyche, sometimes the dream sequences took up too much time in an episode.
Disagree. "Fun House" and "The Test Dream" are not only great episodes in themselves, but significant in their narrative development. In "Funhouse", Tony's willingness to repress doubts over Pussy's involvement with the Feds comes to the fore through a dream. "The Test Dream" works in much the same way regarding Tony's suspicion of Tony B.
Chase has referenced David Lynch as an influence on the dream sequences, and it shows; there's very rich associative, suggestive surrealism in these sequences.
2. I never really found the plot point of Furio falling for Carmella believable. And it sucked to lose his character over a reason like that.
Don't forget that was there (more) for Carmela's character development too. It allowed us to further explore her behavioural patterns and domestic/sexual frustration as Tony's wife, as seen already in season 2 with Davey Scatino's brother-in-law.
3. While Ralph was a character you loved to hate - he had some of the best lines - he was somewhat remincent of Richie; i.e. basically put there to be a pain in Tony's ass. And Ralph being personally killed by Tony was a perhaps a little too reminicent of Richie being personally killed by Janice.
More so in the beginning, until Ralphie's character went further than Richie's arc. Also, Ralphie's brief romantic involvement with Janice in itself demands a comparison between the two characters. When Janice pushes Ralphie down the stairs, what are we to make of it? She killed Richie, of course; what sort of implications might we read into that, with a view to Janice's sex life?
They certainly risked repetition with Feech, but handled that nicely...
4. A short beating (which we never saw) of the Russian by Tony and Furio as payback for Janice didn't seem enough.
Meh. It's possible and probable Tony didn't want to complicate the matter; plus, Janice got into the situation herself.
5. Let's be honest. There is no way Tony and the crew could talk as much as they did in the Bada Bing or Satriale's in real life. But familiar settings are important in a TV series.
I managed to suspend my disbelief. And I'm not convinced this is inaccurate. Chrissy and Georgie are seen in Season One scanning the place for wires.
6. Little Carmine suddenly gives into Johnny Sac in the war when he seemed pretty intent on taking over.
It's to stop things getting way uglier than they had already become at that point.
7. Like above, but even more so, in the last season you had Butchie pushing to go to war and Phil holding back. Then suddenly, over some rather inconsequential things (like his name Leotardo) Phil suddenly decides to take a harder edge, eventually going to war after Coco's beating. Wait? That was the final straw and his brother Billy wasn't? And going to war was what Butchie wanted all along but then we find him wanting to call a truce towards the end. Both characters do a complete 180 from their previous positions without much of a reason.
These are political opportunists more than stubborn Napoleonic power gluttons; they go with whatever situation favours them most. Butch calling a truce with New Jersey helps him to start earning again - and in backing a hit on Phil, he also betters his own position within the NY hierarchy. It's all about the money; seemed pretty logical to me, and telling of how fickle these guys are.
Remember Paulie's would-be defection in Season Four? His initial desperation to jump ship, and the speed with which he goes back to Tony's corner when things don't go his way...?
8. It sucked that Junior had less of a presence as the show went on.
But it was logical, given the development of his character. Tony: "He's dead to me."
9. I think Tony B was killed off too soon. And in fact, like Richie's character from season 2, he was supposed to be around longer in the original plans by the writers.
Tony B's entire narrative arc is to show the impossible difficulties of "going clean", especially after returning to the world after institutionalised incarceration. It's a doomed arc, effectively depicted.
10. The occassional and uneccessary celebrity cameo.
They're kinda fun though, no? The Kingsley and Bacall cameos of "Luxury Lounge", and the whole
Cleaver thing with Danny Baldwin, add another dimension to the show. I'll return to this below...
11. Tony being shot a little reminiscent of Chris being shot. But that plot point still had some great scenes.
No more so than any shooting resembling any other shooting. And they're very different.
12. Blowing up Phil's wireroom, in response to Vito getting killed, wasn't very realistic.
I guess so; no less so than Silvio walking away from Artie's restaurant in the pilot. Sent a message.
13. Too much time spent on the whole Vito being gay thing.
I've never understood this criticism, and I've come across it plenty of times. It's probably the most significant ongoing plot of the entire series - by focusing on it in the way that they do, the writers explore and develop everybody else. It also happens alongside the whole
Cleaver subplot, with the cameos you mentioned, etc.; Season 6A really is about the audience and the show itself as much as anything else. It's telling us how to view the show and
asking how we view it, too. It's actually very clever.
I've heard people say in response to the homosexuality thing that "
The Sopranos became a soap opera!" Haha, it couldn't be any richer or more intelligent. Such criticisms say more about the critics than the show.
14. Over time you get used to David Chase's way of leaving loose ends open but there was really nothing to explain Meadow and Finn breaking up. Just all of the sudden she's dating Patsy Parisi's kid.
It's not inconsistent with Meadow's behaviour, though. None of her relationships have been anything more than adolescent and fleeting. Even the whole engagement to Finn is superficial and based on a desperate whim. In finally 'settling' with Patrick, she comes full circle: don't forget she was seeing the very same Patrick at the beginning of the series. Resignation?
15. Ray Curto suddenly keeling over. Rushing things much?
He was barely in it anyway; he made very brief cameos until that point and with the whole Eugene thing in that same episode, it was a pretty effective way of not only returning to Curto, but to end that particular subplot. Also helps magnify the desperation with which the Feds want to push Eugene; in turn, to magnify the desperation of Eugene's situation.
16. Tony and Chris flipping the car was too reminiscent of Tony and Adriana flipping the car. And it seemd like they were just looking for an excuse to off another major character towards the end.
At first I thought killing Chrissy off came out of nowhere; upon revisits, Chris and Tony are on the outs way before this. Regarding the car-flip, I think the repetition was deliberate. In itself, we're asked to associate the two crashes and ask what they might offer in terms of symbolic, thematic developments. The show actually has many car bumps and crashes, some real and some fantastical. Tony has many car crashes - Melfi dreams of one of them; Phil Leotardo's neck-injuring crash; Livia bumping over her friend; the two crashes you mention; Christopher's first introduction, in the pilot, deals with a car-crash of sorts - that of his Lexus into Mahaffey - like Meadow's arc, Christopher's comes full-circle, of sorts. In the show, relationships are collision courses: in "Whitecaps", the Season Four finale, Tony and Carmela's eventual break-up is foreshadowed when Tony drives his car up the driveway only to feel a sudden 'bump' in the road - he drives over the golf clubs Carmela has de-domesticated via defenestration.
17. Tony screwing every woman under the sun. We know he likes to play around and has girlfriends like most mob guys do, but he's not a porn star for crying out loud.
Infidelity is a major theme in the show.
18. Notice the music in the first episode when Tony is chasing the guy with the car. Very doowop and too reminiscent of many mob movies. Chase later apologized for that and from then on the music in the series was one of it's strongest points. The whole idea of The Sopranos was a modern day crime family and the doowop music hails back to an earlier time.
That tune is also used in
A Bronx Tale. It's just Chase trying to get to grips with his own material while being consciously indebted to all the great stuff made before him.
Actually, this manifests itself thematically too. From the outset, Tony confesses to Melfi that he feels he came in too late, that the best is over. It's a comment about generational disillusionment in American society in general, but it could also double as a self-reflexive concern about the show itself.
You say the series is about a contemporary crime family, but you can take out the crime; its main concern is contemporary family values in general, with crime as a significant backdrop. Tony's mid-life crisis is embedded in and stems from his relation to the past - as anyone's does in general. The choice of music is quite fitting in this regard, I think.
A similar technique is used later in the same episode when Christopher, concerned with his self-image and desperate to make a man of himself, whacks Emil Kolar. As Christopher shoots Emil, we cut away to the faces of three classical faces from the past: Edward G. Robinson, Humphrey Bogart and Dean Martin. The backing song? "Mannish Boy" by Muddy Waters - which also featured briefly in
GoodFellas, one of David Chase's favourite films (he originally wanted Lorraine Bracco to play Carmela).
19. Like I pointed out in the other thread, season 5 left everything set up for a strong and concise final 6th season with the regular 13 episodes. However, probably to just make more money, they release a 12 episode part I and a 9 episode part II. Why? Especially when there really wasn't enough strong material left? And then it's like they suddenly remembered the end was coming up and things got sped up way too quickly in the last few episodes.
Final acts are always fast. I don't think it came down to cynical money-making schemes. I think Season 6A is the richest in terms of material; none of the episodes in 6B are short of excellent.
