The Sopranos - Series 2

Hey, how ya doin? It's Tony Soprano again. Recently, I was watchin the latest bootleg special directors cut dvd of the Godfather when a friend of ours, Vincent, from the best f**kin dvd website in the world DVDnet, calls me with a request. "T, I want you to write a review of your show for DVDnet" he says to me. "I don't want any Australiano stronz writing one of those f**kin boring scene by scene descriptions like everyone else does. Give me the Tony Soprano perspective. Whaddaya say?"

Well what could I say to that? Vincent's a nice guy, you know? So, get yourself some Fregola with Arugula, Salami, and Pecorino, a bottle of Verdicchio di Matelica , sit back and enjoy my f**ked up life.

Ep.1.Guy Walks Into A Psychiatrists Office
Me an the boys are back and boyo, has nothing changed. Everyone is still up to the same old shit. Uncle Junior is still in the Big House, leavin me king of the heap while he takes all the heat, ma's in the hospital playin everyone for saps, Christopher is runnin a share scam, my freeloadin hippy sister Janice is back in town, and Big Pussy is back outta hidin ('though I still got my suspicions about him). We're just one big happy f**ked up family...

Ep.2.Do Not Resusitate
Janice is makin moves on gettin ma's house and is pissing everybody off in the process. Big Pussy is talking to the Feds, Uncle Junior pulls a Skase and is outta the can and under house arrest due to his "medical condition". The ungrateful bastard, even though I'm still letting him earn and think that he's in charge of the show, he's still breakin em about me forgivin ma for okayin my hit. Fat f**king chance of dat happenin, she's dead to me.

Ep.3.Toodle-F**king-oo
Okay, I guess things are never too good on even the best of days around here, but lately everything has been exceptionally shit. My little girl Meadow and her friends trashed ma's house with kid's o.d.ing, getting drunk and puking up everywhere. She's gotta be punished for this, but there's f**k all we can do and she knows it. But even dis is nothing compared to having to deal with the late Jackie Aprile's big brother Richie, who just got outta the can and is back in town. He's been free for two minutes and already he's stirring up shit to start earnin again and fixin to get his hands all over Janice.

Ep.4.Commendatori
I'm takin a couple of the boys to the old country to take care of some business Uncle Junior wasn't handling right. Like I'm not havin enough trouble dealing with the women in my life right now, like Carmela, now I find I gotta deal wit a woman in Italy who runs the show. No matter where I go in da world, I gotta deal wit hotheaded women who just wanna bust my balls.

Ep.5.Big Girls Don't Cry
Furio Giunta, my newest family member has arrived from Italy. He's gonna bring a bit of old school muscle back to the operation while freeing up my boys to concentrate on other tings. All in all, I think some fresh busted heads is gonna be good for business.

Ep.6.The Happy Wanderer
Dis is a big time for me, I finally get to take over the Executive Game -the biggest card game around which generates some big spundoolies. I know I should be happy bout dis, but I'm havin a hard time getting over people who just f**kin float through life without a f**kin care in da world. To cap it off, an old friend, David Scatino (a nice guy, you know, but a f**kin degenerate gambler) is hasslin on me to get in on a bit of action. I warn him over and over that this is a serious business wit serious people, but he says he's a big boy and can take da heat. We'll see...

Ep.7.D-Girl
Christopher thinks he can make the play for the bigtime with his movie scripts when he meets some Hollywood goombah called Jon Favreau. So workin for the family isn't where his head is at? What? The family business not good enough for his skinny guinea ass? Well, I don't want someone around who isn't 110% f**kin committed to the job, so it's either Hollywood or Jersey, not both. It's bad enough dealing with Anthony, Jnr. who has been questionin the meanin of life since reading some stuff in school. What the f**k are they teachin kids these days? Atleast I can rely on Big Pussy, he's A.J's sponsor for his confirmation. At least I can rely on him not to f**k me around, I mean, he's my kids sponsor, right?

Ep.8.Full Leather Jacket
Richie, Richie, Richie. That motherf**ker is bustin em again. He tinks givin me some old shitty leather jacket he beat of some guy years ago is gonna make things better between us. He keeps goin on and on about it, but like I give a shit. F**k him, f**k his leather jacket and f**k the horse he rode in on. To cap it off, two of Christophers friends are gettin restless and wanna move up in the world the fast way, but they don't realise they're picked the wrong way.

Ep.9.From Where To Eternity
Christopher is in a bad way in hospital having caught a few slugs. He clinically died for a minute and thinks he saw Hell. He told me and Paulie that Mickey Pulmice was there and had a message for us. I don't believe this shit, but Paulie's totally f**kin freaked out.

Ep.10.Bust Out
Okidoke, so I'm in some serious shit cause of an eye witness to our revenge hit for Christopher. If I get pinned for this, I'm f**ked good and proper this time, so I have to be ready to skip town. I know Meadow is okay cause she a strong kid, but I wanna spend time with A.J. cause he needs to toughen up and stop being such a little goof-off, and I haven't been the best father at times anyway. On the business side of things, we're running David Scatino's business right into the ground to get our money he owes, and would you f**kin believe it Carmela has the hots for his brother-in-law? Agita? Madonna!

Ep.11.House Arrest
I'm bored outta my f**kin mind. My lawyer says I oughta spend more time in one of my legitimate businesses now that the feds are off my back. It was a close call, so I guess he's right. So I'm hangin about in the office at my garbage business. I gotta tell ya, it's drivin me nuts. F**kin garbage dis, f**kin garbage dat, I got f**kin garbage comin outta my ass.

Ep.12.The Knight in White Satin Armor
Uncle Jun tells me that Richie is making moves to get support to have me whacked, but not if I can get the motherf**king f**k first. While I'm "cleaning house" so to speak, I'm gonna get rid of my goomar, Irina. But sumptin tells me this is gonna be even harder than gettin rid of Richie.

Ep.13.Funhouse
As we come to the end, I haf ta say tings are looking pretty f**kin good for a change. Our little calling card scam is turning out ta be a nice little earner, I got Carmela a fur coat so she's off my back and Meadow is about to graduate. So what could go wrong? Well, now that you ask, a dodgy Indian dinner could go f**kin wrong. I been throwin my guts up all friggin night and feel like dyin. The worst ting is the f**kin bizarro dreams I'm havin. Weird shit about me an the boys, but mostly about Big Pussy, like they're tryin ta tell me sumptin...

Now, I'll hand you back to Vincent to discuss the transfer stuff.

Thanks, Tony. This time all the shows are presented in a 1.77:1 aspect ratio and all are 16x9 enhanced, so you can relax now. The look of the show is pretty much identical to the first season, but of a higher quality picture in regards to solidity of finer detail. The colours all look nice and real with just okay shadow detail at times and only minor (and trivial) aliasing. Happy now?

Oh yeah, and although all the discs are dual layered, the last disc is the only RSDL one. I don't usually mention layer changes because they're different for most peoples players, but this one was in the middle of a scene and was nice and smooth and unintrusive on my equipment. Your results may differ.

For some reason, the first 3 episodes are DD2.0 surround encoded and the remaining 10 are in DD5.1. Even though this is a step in the right direction, if you're expecting dramatic differences between the two, you'll be let down. In fact, about the only difference is a slightly airier soundstage, a little better rear channel ambience (although it's only minimal) and the little blue light on your amp and dvd player will turn on when the 5.1 episodes are on. But overall, what you have to remember is that the quality is pretty good throughout, the all important dialogue is perfectly clear all the time and the sound has a bit of oomph when needed.

Many people were dissatisfied with the extras on the first season dvds. It seems that 13 hours of quality entertainment in a 6 disc box set for around a hundred bucks just wasn't good enough for them. They had ta have more. The States got em, why shouldn't we, blah, blah, blah. We wuz robbed, blah, blah, blah. Are things gonna be any different this time round? Well, even though this time you get a few more extras, they're short and don't really add much value, so you can start your bitchin whenever you're ready.

However, for the people who aren't whinging crybabies and are happy with what we do get, they consist of an International Trailer, the Original Music Video and a New Music Video(which is really more of a trailer with different music). Then, the Season 2 Premiere, which is a 3 minute puff piece at the shows launch and after party. Then, The Real Deal which has a bunch of reporters, cops, etc, commenting on how true the show is to real life. David Chase is 48 seconds of the actors singing the praises of the shows creator. The Show is a similar piece at 78 seconds with some more praise about the show and Nancy Marchand Tribute is a 1 minute tribute to Nancy who played Tony's mother on the show and passed away after the second season. Unfortunately, dispite what the packaging says, it doesn't include any career film hilights at all. And speaking of the packaging for the dvds, I gotta tell ya, this gate fold box, I kinda like it. I dunno what some mezzo finocchio are complainin about, they're like the old lady who has a leg of ham under one arm and still complains about not having any bread. There's just no pleasing some people.

Now, back to Tony for the wrap up...

Thank you, Vincent. Well, you f**kin goombahs whinged about the audio and the video and the extras wit the first season dvds, so this time you get 5.1 sound and an anamorphic transfer. But now I suppose you're gonna whinge that you still get screwed on the extras. Well you know what? Build a f**kin bridge and get over it. I personally tink this is a brilliant show and a great dvd release and people are going to run over their own mothers (or preferably mine) to get it.

Now scram and let me get back to my manacotti.